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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
After a photograph by Claudet. 



lEnglislj (JTlasstcs — Star Srrirs 

ESSAYS 

ON 

MILTON AND ADDISON 

BY / 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

THOMAS MARC PARROTT, Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 




GLOBE SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONSRESS, 
Two C0HE8 Received 

APR. 6 1901 

Copyright emtry 
QA-S, ^iCf 
CLASS (iOXXc. N». 

COPY B, 



Copy 






Copyright, I'm, by 
Globe School Book Company. 

M. p. 1 



MANHATTAN PRESS 

474 WEST BROADWAY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 



It has been my purpose in preparing this edition of INIacaulay's 
Essays on Milton and Addison to make the little book as complete 
as possible in itself. All teachers who have had experience of the 
present conditions in our secondary schools know that it is quite 
useless to expect the average schoolboy to do airfthing like inde- 
pendent investigation. He has many other interests/in and outside 
of his hours of study which conflict with such woi'k in English ; 
his time is strictly limited, for he is required to prepare a certain 
lesson by a certain hour ; and the works of reference at his com- 
mand are few and unreliable. It is, therefore, idle by way of 
explaining iVIacaulay's allusion to the courteous Knight and Bali- 
sarda to refer the student to the forty-fifth canto of Orlando 
Furioso. It is almost certain that he could not lay hands on 
Ariosto's poem if he wished to, and it is even more likely that he 
would not wish to if he could. 

But Macaulay's style is rich in such allusions. " Take at hazard 
any three pages of the ' Essays ' or ' History,' " says Thackeray, 
" and glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, 
an average reader, see one, two, three, a halfscore of allusions to 
other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry with which you 
are acquainted. . . . Your neighbor who has his reading and his 
little store of literature stowed away in his mind shall detect more 
points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious 
memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful indus- 
try, the honest, humble, previous toil of this great scholar." In- 
deed, it is in this allusiveness, this suggestiveness, that much of 
Macaulay's charm consists. 

Now since this is the case, the editor who is preparing one of 
Macaulay's essays for the average schoolboy is shut up to one of 
two courses. He may either pass over the greater part of the 
allusions in silence, or he may give such comment as shall explain 
their bearing on the text, their relation to the subject that 

iii 



iv TREFACE 

Macaulay is discussing. To decline to annotate is to shirk the 
duty of an editor and to deny the student's claim to knowledge 
he has a right to ; to annotate every allusion is to run the risk of 
choking the student with masses of information and exposing him 
to a severe attack of intellectual indigestion. But, after all, the 
schoolboy mind has a happy faculty of refusing unprofitable 
nourishment. The great thing is to make the information inter- 
esting; if it is palatable, it will be digested. 

If this fact be firmly borne in mind, the editor's duty becomes 
plainer. Certain sorts of information, etymological, archaeologi- 
cal, resthetic, may be barred out as contributing in nowise to the 
student's interest. Chronological tables are a vexation to the 
mind, constantly recurring dates of birth and death are altogether 
unprofitable. And for the rest, the editor's task should be to 
explain every allusion as fully, as clearly, and as entertainingly as 
his own intellectual capabilities and the limits of space allow. 

Two works alone I have reckoned on finding either in the 
student's desk or M'ithin his easy reach, an English Dictionary 
and the English Bible. I have, therefore, thought it unnecessary 
after the fashion of some previous editors to define such words as 
"heterodox," "pervert," and "occult." A certain knowledge of 
the Bible also is of right demanded from every reader of the 
English language. It is a shameful truth that ignorance of this 
book is widespread and increasing, but it is the duty of the in- 
structor in English to insist upon a general knowledge at least of 
its most important facts. For my own part I altogether decline 
to condone this ignorance by treating the Bible as some unknown 
or inaccessible work. 

My thanks are due to the Librarian of Edinburgh University 
and his assistants for the courtesy which opened to me the re- 
sources of that institution during the summer vacation ; to Mr. 
V. Lansing Collins, Reference Librarian of Princeton University, 
whose wide reading and ready command of the sources of infor- 
mation have been of the greatest assistance ; and to Mr. A. W. 
Long of Lawrenceville School, to whose literary taste and practical 
experience I am indebted for much valuable criticism in the cor- 
rection and revision of the notes. 

Princeton Univeksitv, 
November 26, 1900. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION : 

I. A Skktch of Macaulay's Life . . . . vii 

II. Macaulay's AVork and Character . . . xix 

III. Introduction to the Essay on Milton . . xxiii 

IV. A Sketch of Milton's Life and Character xxviii 

V. Introduction to the Essay on, Addison . . xl 

VI. An Outline of English History from 1085 to 

1715 xlvi 

VII. A List of the Politicians of Queen Anne's 

Reign ...... i .. Vn 

VIII. Examination Questions ...... Iv 

IX. A Brief Bibliography ...... Iviii 

THE ESSAY ON MILTON 1 

THE ESSAY ON ADDISON 59 

Notes on the Essay' on Milton ...... 151 

Notes on the Essay on Addison 177 



INTRODUCTION 

A Sketch of Macaulay's Life 

Thomas Babixgtox Macaulay was born at Rotliley 
Temple, in Leicestershire, October 25, 1800, at the house of 
the uncle after whom he was named. He traced his descent 
back through a long line of Presbyterian ministers in the 
west of Scotland to an ancestor in the Viking age. Years 
after, when Macaulay was a lion of the London drawing- 
rooms, Carlyle, with his quick eye for racial type and 
character, read his brother Scotsman's ancestry in his face. 
" I noticed," he said, " the homely Norse features that you 
find everywhere in Western Isles, and I thought to myself, 
' Well, any one can see that you are an honest, good sort of 
fellow, made out of oatmeal.' " 

Zachary Macaulay, the writer's father, abandoned the cleri- 
cal profession of his ancestors and went out, at sixteen years 
of age, to seek his fortune in the West Indies. He returned 
eight years later without the fortune, but with a purpose 
which dominated the rest of his life — that of waging vmceas- 
ing war upon the institution of negro slavery. He became 
a close and trusted friend of the little group of Abolitionists 
in London, was sent out by them as governor of their young 
colony of freedmen at Sierra Leone, and on his return 
married a pretty Quakeress who had been the pupil of 
Hannah More, the highly respected poetess of the party. 

Not much is known of Mrs. Macaulay. She was by no 
means one of the remarkable mothers of remarkable men, 
but she was well read, well bred, and loving; ruling ten- 

vii 



viii INTRODUCTION 

dei'l}', but firmly, her large family of four sons and five 
daughters. It was from her that Macaulay inherited the 
warm heart and prudent sense of conduct that marked his 
private and his public life. 

His father was a strong, silent man, an old-fashioned 
Scotch Presbyterian, sternly religious, hating evil with a 
bitter hatred, devoting himself, body and soul, to the accom- 
plishment of his aim in life, and in his efforts " meekly 
enduring," to quote words of his epitaph, "toil and priva- 
tion and reproach, resigning to others praise and reward. " 
He was not altogether in sympathy with his brilliant son, 
whom he from time to time rebuked for his careless habits, 
his vehemence, and self-confidence, his taste for novels and 
the poetry of Lord Byron, and for his supposed tendency to 
become " one of the sons of anarchy and confusion," 
in other words, to advocate reform. It speaks well for 
Macaulay that while he felt bitterly his father's lack of 
sympathy and appreciation, he never ceased to love and 
reverence him, was " always anxious to please and amuse 
him, and to the last was the stay and support of his declin- 
ing years." 

Macaulay was a quick and precocious child. " From the 
time that he Avas three years old," says his biographer, " he 
read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before 
the fire with his book on the ground and a piece of bread 
and butter in his hand." Later on he read aloud to an 
adoring circle of younger brothers and sisters such classic 
w^rks as Kichardson's novels, Clarendon's and Burnet's 
histories, the ]^ays of Shakespeare, and the solemn effusions 
of the Edinburgh and the Quarterhj Reviews. One wonders 
what the little Macaulays gained from such a heavy diet 
beyond the immense admiration for their amazing brother 
which marked the family for life. He did more than read ; 
he wrote in the most precocious manner, on many sub- 
jects, and in various forms of composition. In liis eighth 



A SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE ix 

year he wrote a Universal History and an argument to 
persuade the inhabitants of Travancore to embrace Christian- 
ity. He began a metrical romance in the manner of Scott 
entitled The Battle of Cheviot, but abandoned it to take up 
an heroic poem after the manner of Virgil. He wrote at 
the same time many hymns which Hannah More pronounced 
quite extraordinary for such a baby. Even at this early 
age composition seemed as easy to him as speech, and he 
dashed off these boyish, self-imposed tasks at the highest 
imaginable rate of speed. In his mother's words, he would 
rather write ten poems than prune one. 

At the age of thirteen Macaulay was sent to a private 
school near Cambridge. The head master was an evangeli- 
cal clergyman who worried the boys about the state of their 
souls, and forced them to reproduce the long sermons he 
poured forth on Sundays. But he was a good teacher and a 
great encourager of general reading. "He lends me any 
books for which I ask him," writes the schoolboy, " so that I 
am nearly as well off in this respect as at home ; except for 
one thing which, though I believe it is useful, is not very 
pleasant. I can only ask for one book at a tinie, and cannot 
touch another till I have read it through." And so, besides 
his studies, Xenophon, the Odyssey, Virgil, we find him 
poring in his free hours over Plutarch's Lives and Milner's 
Ecclesiastical History, or refreshing himself with Fenelon's 
Dialogues and the petits romans of Mme. de Genlis. He 
had already begun to display the prodigious powers of 
acquisition and memory which were the amazement of h^ 
friends in later life. A glance down a page (gave him its 
contents, and one reading was often enough to enable him to 
repeat these with tolerable accuracy. He got Scott's earlier 
poems by heart on their first appearance, and used to boast 
that if all printed copies of Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim^s 
Progress should vanish from the eartli, he could reproduce 
them from memory. He took little or no part in the games 



X INTRODUCTION 

of liis schoolmates, got his only exercise in long walks, 
generally with a volume in his hand, and was rapidly 
turning into a young pedant, when the broader life and more 
varied interests of a University opened his eyes to the 
world of politics, which henceforward divided his interests 
with his beloved books. 

In 1818, Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge. 
Here he became a member of a very brilliant circle of 
young men, and laid aside the Tory opinions of his father 
for the new principles of reform. Before he left college, he 
became what he remained through life, — an enthusiastic 
and eloquent champion of the great Whig party. 

Macaulay did not at first distinguish himself in his 
studies at Cambridge. He was intoxicated with the free- 
dom of the University and the delights of intellectual com- 
bat with his peers. " So long as a door was open, or a 
light Avas burning in any of the courts, Macaulay Avas 
always in a mood for conversation or companionship. He 
supped at night on milk punch and roast turkey, drank tea 
in floods at an hour when older men are intent upon anything 
rather than on the means of keeping themselves awake, and 
made little of sitting over the fire till the bell rang for 
morning chapel, in order to see a friend off by the early 
coach." He detested with all his heart the mathematical 
studies, which, at that time, were all-important at Cam- 
bridge. " Oh for words to express my abomination of that 
science ! '' he writes. " Oh that I had to learn astrology, or 
demouology, or school divinity ! . . . Discipline of the 
mind ! Say, rather, starvation, confinement, torture, annihi- 
lation. 1 feelmyself becoming a personification of Algebra, 
a living trigonometrical canon, a walking table of Loga- 
rithms." In other lines, more to his taste, he was 
l)rilliantly successful. He twice took a medal for Eng- 
lish verse, gained a classical scholarship, and after two 
trials won a fellowship at Trinity, which gave him for 



A SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE xi 

seven years an income of $1500, the right to stable ^ 
horse, if he owned one, in tlie college buildings, and six 
dozen bottles of the famous college ale every Christmas. 
Even more important than the fellowship, in its influence 
upon his future life, was his successfnl competition for a 
prize annually awarded to the best essay on the character 
and conduct of William III. This monarch, as all the 
world knows, became the hero of Macaulay's famous his- 
tory, and the lively, declamatory, picturesque style of that 
work shows itself already developed in this boyish study. 

On leaving ('ambridge, in 182;"), INIacaulay began the study 
of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1826, but he cared 
nothing whatever for the profession, and, it is said, never 
held but one brief. He soon gave up even the pretence of 
practising law, and devoted himself entirely to literature 
and public life. In the first of these vocations, he had, in 
fact, already attained a sudden and brilliant success. AVhile 
an undergraduate at Cambridge, he had contributed largely 
to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, and the most striking of his 
contributions was undoubtedly the "Conversation between 
Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the 
great Civil War." This essay contains some admirable 
description and argument, and, what is rarer in Macaulay, 
shows a capability of looking on both sides of a question. 
It may well be read as a supplement, and, in some sense, 
a corrective to the impassioned partisan rhetoric of the 
more famous essay on Milton. A full account of the cir- 
cumstances under which this essay was written will be 
found below on pages xxiv-xxvi. It is sufficient here to say 
that it appeared in the August number of the Edinburgh 
Revieto for 1825, and made Macaulay famous in a day. He 
was overwhelmed with compliments and invitations, and the 
doors of the great publishing houses were at once thrown 
o})en to him. In the next few years he contributed a 
number of articles to the Edinburgh lievieiv, and indulged 



xii INTRODUCTION 

in a very spirited controversy with the Tory and Radieal 
opponents of that strong \Miig organ. By 1830 he had so 
distinguished himself that Lord Lansdowne, one of the 
leaders of the party in Parliament, offered him a seat in the 
House of Commons for the borough of Calne. 

jMacaulay entered Parliament on the eve of the great 
Reform Bill, which took the balance of power from the 
hands of the country gentlemen, where it had lain since the 
Revolution of 1688, and placed it in the hands of the great 
middle class. He took a prominent part in the passage of 
the bill. His first speech on Reform was received with a 
tempest of applause, and the veterans of the House com- 
pared it with the greatest efforts of Fox and Burke in the 
preceding generation. He became at once a marked man 
in public affairs, the idol of his Whig colleagues, no one of 
whom equalled him in the power of fervid and convincing 
eloquence, and the dreaded opponent of all who clung to the 
old order. The next four years were the busiest and bright- 
est of his life. He spoke repeatedly in Parliament, adding 
steadily to his fame as an orator ; and showed such talent 
for administration that he was given a place on the Board 
of Control for Indian Affairs. And he })lunged with a young 
man's eagerness into the delights of London society, became 
a welcome guest at Holland House, for two generations the 
gathering place of many of the most famous men in Eng- 
land, and was soon a shining light in the brilliant society of 
wits and poets that met around its hospitable board. His 
sunny temper, his readiness to please and to be pleased, his 
wonderful flow of conversation, lacking only, as a rival talker 
said, " the brilliant flashes of silence," made him welcome 
wherever he went. At the same time, he kept up his con- 
nection with the Edinburgh Revievj, although he had often 
to rise at five in the morning after a fierce night's debate in 
Parliament to complete his engagements with that maga- 
zine. Many of his most famous essays w^ere dashed off in 



A SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE Xlil 

this way, including those on Bja-on, on Johnson, and on 
Horace Walpole. Gladstone has remarked with justice that 
no Englishman except Pitt and Lord Byron ever won such 
immense distinction at so early an age. 

Yet with all his success, his financial prospects were any- 
thing but cheerful. His father had not only lost his whole 
fortune, but had become deeply involved in debt, which 
Macaulay set himself resolutely to pay off. His fellowship 
expired, and an office which he had obtained shortly before 
entering Parliament was abolished in the general movement 
for reform and economy. It is to Macaulay's everlasting 
credit that he voted for this measure which left him almost 
penniless. Indeed, at one time he was obliged to sell the 
medals which he had won at Cambridge. Put his inde- 
pendent spirit never faltered. Differing with his friends in 
the government on some detail in the bill for the abolition 
of slavery in the West Indies, he resigned his office, and 
both spoke and voted against the measure. It was generally 
believed, and he shared the conviction, that this revolt 
against his party leaders would mean political ruin to him. 
Put his party could not spare him ; the government declined 
to accept his resignation, and agreed to a compromise 
acceptable to all parties. 

About the end of IS'S'S, ]\[acaulay received an appointment 
which promised him in return for a brief exile from home 
and a period of hard labor in the trying climate of India, an 
independence for life. He became a member of the Supreme 
Council of India at a salary almost equal to that of the 
President of the United States, of which he expected to 
save at least one-half each year. It Avas not for himself 
alone that he wished a fortune ; his father, his brother, and 
his sisters were practically dependent on him, and he had, 
moreover, the even higher motive of working for his country 
in one of the grandest of her many fields. He sailed in 
February, 1834, taking with him his favorite sister, Hannah, 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

and he spent the long voyage around the Cape of Good 
Hope in incessant reading. " Except at meals,'' he said in 
a letter home, "I hardly exchanged a word with a human 
being. During the whole voyage I read with keen and 
increasing enjoyment. I devoured Greek, Latin, Spanish, 
Italian, French, English ; folios, quartos, octavos, duo- 
decimos." In India itself he read enormously ; his " read- 
ing account" for thirteen months included aEschylus and 
Sophocles, Pindar, Theocritus, Plautus, Terence and Lucre- 
tius twice, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucy dides, Plutarch, Livy, 
Sallust, and Caesar, almost all of Xenophon, Plato, and 
Cicero, besides a host of minor classics. ^' Books are be- 
coming everything to me,"' he wrote a little later. " If I had 
at this moment my choice of life, I would bury myself in 
one of those immense libraries at the Universities, and never 
pass a waking hour without a book before me." But this 
immense amount of reading was accomplished wholly in his 
leisure hours, before breakfast, or in the heat of the torrid 
Indian afternoon. For the rest of the time he worked on 
public affairs, perhaps even harder than he did at home. 
Besides the regular routine of the Council he undertook 
two most important tasks, the reorganization of public in- 
struction in India, and the drawing up of a penal code. 
Both of them he accom})lished with that imion of zeal for 
reform and practical common sense, which marked all his 
public actions. He was outrageously abused for some of 
his acts by the Anglo-Indian papers, but only retaliated by 
a vigorous advocacy of the freedom of the press, which was 
at that time slandering him so foully that he could not let 
his sister see the morning pai)ers. 

In January, 1838, he set sail for England, a richer man 
not only by what he had saved, but also by a legacy of 
.1)50,000 from an Anglo-Indian uncle. 

Shortly after his return he made a toiir of Italy, visiting 
(jenoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples; and finishing the 



A SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE XV 

Lays of Ancient Rome, which he had begun in India. For the 
next seven or eight years his life was divided between poli- 
tics and literature. He had already conceived the idea of a 
history of England, which he hoped to carry down from the 
Revolution of 1688 to the death of George IV., and he would 
gladly have devoted all his time to this work. But his 
party needed his services, and he once more entered Parlia- 
ment, this time as member for Edinburgh. He became 
Secretary of AVar, and did his best to uphold the sinking 
fortunes of the "Whigs, but at the same time he kept up his 
connection with the EdhiJxinjli Review, and contributed to 
it a number of his most brilliant essays, among others the 
famous Indian articles on Clive and Warren Hastings. 

AVhen the Whigs were driven from office in 1841, he took 
advantage of his comparative leisure to bring out the Lays 
of Ancient Rome. The little volume was received with a 
chorus of applause, led by Macaulay's old adversary, Chris- 
topher North. It sold as no volume of poetry had done 
since Byron took the reading world by storm. Over one 
hundred thousand copies, his biographer assures us, were 
disposed of before 1875. In 184.3, he consented somewhat 
reluctantly to the publication of his essays in book form. 
He had already rejected a proposal to this effect, insisting 
that essays were, after all, only ephemeral literature, meant 
for the pages of a magazine, and destined at best to a life 
of six weeks. But their widespread circulation in the 
United States, and the increasing influx of American reprints, 
forced his hand, and a three-volume edition appeared which 
was bought up even more rapidly than the Lays had been. 
In fact, the Essays soon became almost a necessary of life, 
and it is said that the number of copies sold in England 
varies like the number of tons of coal, only with the pros- 
perity of the country. His last essays, those on Addison 
and Lord Chatham, were contributed to the Edinburgh 
Revieio in 1844, after which year he ceased to produce this 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

form of literature, reserving all his efforts for the History 
which was now well under way. In 1847, he lost his seat 
in Parliament, owing to the inability of his constituents to 
sympathize Avith the freedom from sectarian prejudice that 
he had shown in voting money to support a Roman Catholic 
school in Ireland ; but this loss was on the whole a gain for 
him, for from this time on he resolutely turned his back 
upon the distractions of politics, and set himself to accom- 
plish his great work. The remaining years of his life were 
devoted to his History. 

It is not too much to say that INIacaulay wrote history in 
an entirely new fashion. He aimed at making it as amusing 
as a novel, but his easy reading Avas the result of very hard 
work. He rummaged in the State papers of his oaa'u and 
other countries, turned over thousands of pamphlets in the 
great libraries of England, and visited Scotland, Ireland, 
Belgium, and France to explore the scenes of AA'hich he was 
to AA^'ite. Then, Avhen he had gathered all the information 
available on any one episode, he sat down to Avrite, dashing off 
page after page of manuscript in a " chaos of hieroglyphics." 
When he had finished his first draft, he set himself to the 
labor of expansion and revision — his task, he called it. Six 
pages of foolscap a morning Avas his limit, and these Avere 
so marred and crossed by changes and corrections that they 
seldom amounted to more than two pages of print. He did 
not, on the Avhole, compose rapidly, for he Avrote only Avhen 
in the mood for it, and often spent a long time in rewriting 
and perfecting a passage. It once took him nineteen days 
to finish some thirty pages. When at last he Avas satisfied 
with his Avork, he Avas in the habit of reading it aloud to his 
sisters or an intimate friend, — " the great object," he said, 
"is that it may read as if it had been spoken off," — and 
lastly he corrected the proof sheets Avith the most assiduous 
attention, and the most minute precision. 

His labor met its rcAvard at once. The first tAvo A'olumes 



A SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE Xvii 

appeared in November, 1848, and met with a reception such 
as had never been accorded to any serious book in the Eng- 
lish language. The first edition of 3000 copies was sold out 
in ten days, and lo,000 were disposed of in less than four 
montlis. In America the sale was even greater. The Har- 
pers wrote him that they had sold 40,000 copies almost 
immediately, and they estimated that in all about 200,000 
would be disposed of within six months from its appearance. 
The next two volumes came out in 1855 and met with even 
greater success. Twenty-six thousand five hundred copies 
were sold in the first ten weeks, and his publishers were 
able to pay him in a few months the enormous sum of 
$100,000, the greatest amount ever paid at one time for 
one edition of a book. Nor has appreciation of the work 
been confined to the English-speaking peoples. The History 
has been translated into Polish, Danish, Swedish, Italian, 
French, Dutch, Spanish, Hungarian, Kussian, and C'zechish. 
Macaulay was elected a member of the Institution of France, 
and of the Academies of Utrecht, Munich, and Turin. The 
king of Prussia made him a Knight of the (^rder of Merit, 
the University of Oxford gave him the honorary degree of 
doctor of Civil Law, the queen made him a lord. Such 
success naturally awakened jealousy at the time, and since 
his death voices have been heard declaring that Macaulay 
was honored above his merits. It certainly is true that 
greater men have met with far less recognition ; but it is 
none the less jdeasant to find one man of letters, at least, 
rewarded as if he were a victorious general, or a successful 
merchant. 

Macaulay's last years were broken by ill-health. His old 
district of Edinburgh repented of its treatment of so illus- 
trious a representative, and in 1852 returned him to Parlia- 
ment without his solicitation. But he took little part in the 
House of Commons, and none at all in the House of Lords. 
He spent most of the time at work in his library, but he 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

found leisure to entertain his friends, to become the adored 
uncle of a little circle of children — one of whom was after- 
ward his biographer, — to dispense a generous and almost too 
lavish charity, and to make an annual tour through some of 
the loveliest scenes of Europe. He had long since realized 
that he would not be able to accomplish his v/ork on the 
scale he had planned ; he now saw that the end could not be 
far off, and that he would barely be able to finish the reign 
of his hero, William III. But in spite of chronic asthma, 
heart disease, and alarming fainting fits, he looked forward 
to the end with calm dignity. He had lived a useful and a 
happy life, and had ripened into a serene and beautiful old 
age. Only one sorrow stood before him — the parting with 
his beloved sister, who was soon to return to India with her 
husband. And even this he was spared. On the 28th of 
December, 1859, some months before she was to sail, he was 
found dead in his library, sitting quietly over a book. The 
sorrow for his death was universal ; a grave in the Poets' 
Corner of Westminster Abbey was assigned to him as an 
unquestioned right, and some of the greatest men of England 
bore his body to its last resting-place. 



MACAULAY'S WORK AND CHAEACTER 



Macaulay's Work and Character 

Macaulay's life-work was divided between politics and 
literature. As a politician we may dismiss him with a very- 
brief mention. He was the last representative of the great 
Whigs of the eighteenth century ; a champion of the sober 
middle class, alike against tlie dying overlordship of the 
gentry, and the growing power of the masses. He was a 
true Englishman in his love of ordered liberty, in his vig- 
orous partisanship, and in his practical talent for affairs. 
He was a cheery optimist, and never, like some greater and 
sadder contemporaries, despaired of the republic. All in all, 
a very admirable type of the work-a-day statesman, eloquent, 
active, practical, and, in the best sense of the word, 
honest. 

As a man of letters Macaulay may be considered as a 
poet, an essayist, and an historian. By some critics, it is 
true, the first title is altogether denied him. But this 
depends upou the definition of poetry. If by the word we 
mean only imaginative and emotional verse of the first class, 
the i;tterance of the inspired genius, Macaulay never wrote 
one line of poetry. But if the definition be made broad 
enough to include the utterance in spirited verse of some of 
the simpler passions of mankind, love of country, hatred of 
oppression, lust of battle, glory of triumph, it is hard to see 
why the title of poet should be denied to the author of the 
Lays, Ivry, and the Armada. The hearty approbation of 
generations of high-spirited, warm-blooded boys has set its 
stamp upon Macaulay's verse — good, sound stuff, not the 
pure gold of the mine, indeed, but honest, ringing steel fit 
for the combat. 

As an essayist INIacaulay occupies an almost unique posi- 
tion in English literature. He created the historical essay, 
a form of literature exactly suited to the time in which he 



XX INTRODUCTION 

lived, a brief, clear, and illuminating introduction to some 
great era or some dominating personality. It is perfectly 
true that the more one knoAvs about the era or the person- 
ality, the less one cares for Macaulay's introduction ; but it 
is none the less valuable to the beginner for its stimulating 
quality, its power to awake interest in the past and the far 
away. Macaulay has been well called an almost unsurpassed 
leader to reading, and his essays have been to hundreds and 
thousands the door through which they entered into the 
great world of past politics, history, and literature. INIa- 
caulay is seldom a good critic, never an impartial judge ; 
he is always, as in the Essay on Milton., an advocate plead- 
ing his cause. But — and this is the great merit of his 
Avork — his causes are almost always right. He is biassed 
indeed, but in favor of liberty, toleration, decency, and good 
faith. The immense popularity of his essays has made him 
throughout the century a tremendous power, working, on 
the Avhole, though with certain distinct limitations, for good. 

Macaulay's JUstory is, no doubt, his greatest work. To it 
he devoted fifteen of the best and ripest years of his life. 
His Essays he regarded rather slightingly, but his History 
he thought of as destined to long life, if not to immortality. 
" I have aimed high," he says of it. " I have had the year 
2000, and even the year 3000, often in my mind. I have 
sacrificed nothing to temporary fashions of thought and 
style. ... I think, though with some misgivings, that the 
book will live.'' 

Macaulay had a theory of history quite new to English liter- 
ature. According to him history should present not merely 
the acts of kings, soldiers, and statesmen, but the social 
life and the common interests of the nation at large. Above 
all, it should be entertaining. " K a book is not amusing, 
it wants," he declared, " the highest of all recommenda- 
tions." And in order that the new history might entertain 
not merely students, but even the readers whom the ordinary 



MACAULAY'S WORK AND CHARACTER xxi 

histories repelled, it must be written iu the easiest and 
clearest style possible. That INIacaulay succeeded in what 
he aimed at, is proved by the immediate . and continued 
popularity of his work. Even to-day the History is as 
entertaining as a novel. The secret of its interest lies 
largely in IVIacaulay's remarkable faculty of historic imagi- 
nation. He wrote of William's campaigns in Ireland and 
Flanders with the same dash and liveliness that an inspired 
war-correspondent does of the actions that are taking place 
before his eyes. By virtue of this faculty Macaulay is, 
perhaps, the best story-teller of modern historians. He has 
the secret of extracting entertainment even from the dull 
and common-place. The wrangles of shifty statesmen for 
place and power, the intricate details of ecclesiastical admin- 
istration, the tortuous intrigues of foreign diplomacy, seen 
through the glass of JMacaulay's vivid style, become a specta- 
cle, movingly alive and thrillingly interesting. 

Macaulay lacked, it must be confessed, some of the great- 
est qualities of a historian. In the Histonj as in the Essays 
he is always partial, and often inaccurate. He has not suffi- 
cient breadth of sympathy to grasp and reproduce a great 
national movement like that of Puritanism. iSTor with all 
his talent has he the creative genius to reconstruct in its 
entirety some great historic figure ; his William III. is a 
pale shadow beside Carlyle's Cromwell or Fi-ederick the 
Great. But what he tries to do he does perfectly ; he amuses, 
instructs, and imparts to his readers his own prejudice for 
righteous causes and honest men. 

In private life as in his work Macaulay's sympathies were 
limited. He had many pleasant acquaintances, but few close 
friends. He never married, but in the little circle of his 
brothers and sisters, his nephews and nieces, he gave and 
received more love than most men do in their own families. 
He knew almost nothing of contemporary literature, but he 
was better read than almost any man of his day in the litera- 



XXll INTRODFCTION 

ture of the past. On the other hand, he was quite insensible 
to music, and had the slightest possible appreciation of art. 
In all the practical relations of life he was most admirable ; 
hard-working, independent, upright, and charitable. His 
character was singularly open and sincere. In all his busy 
life there seems to have been no act or thought of which he 
had cause to be ashamed, and he found his reward in the 
esteem of the whole world and in the loving devotion of 
those Avho knew him best. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON MILTON xxiii 



IXTRODUCTIOX TO THE EsSAY OX MiLTOX 

The Essay on Milton was the first of Macaulay's long 
series of contributions to the Edinburgh Review, the first 
and greatest of the famous English quarterlies. Some 
knowledge of the history and purpose of this magazine is 
necessary to explain, and, in part at least, to justify the tone 
and character of Macaulay's essay. 

In 1802, England was completely absorbed in the bitter 
struggle against Xapoleon. All reforms at home had been 
laid aside, and there Avas danger that they would be com- 
pletely forgotten, for the fear that any effort at reform 
would lead to a revolution like that in France had driven 
the nation into the most narrow and panic-stricken conserva- 
tism. In Scotland, especially, any suspicion of a leaning 
toward' Liberal principles was enough to ruin the reputation 
of a young man. Yet it was in Scotland that there appeared 
the first sign of an intellectual revolt against this unreason- 
ing spirit which clung, right ot wrong, to the past. A little 
band of friends, for the most part young lawyers, met one 
stormy night at the house of one of their number, Francis 
Jeffrey, and decided, on the suggestion of Sidney Smith, the 
famous English wit and clergyman, to start a magazine 
which would serve as the mouthpiece of their views in 
literature, philosophy, and politics. The time was ripe for 
such an undertaking. In Scotland no critical journal of any 
sort existed, and in England the reviews were bound in a 
degrading slavery to the publishing trade. The success of 
the daring venture was immediate and beyond expectation. 
For a time, at least, its political views were not brought 
forward with undue emphasis. It made its way rather by 
its literary articles ; and since it paid with quite unheard-of 
liberality for contributions, these AVere furnished by some 
of the best men in the country. Even so good a Tory as 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

Sir Walter Scott consented for a time to forget his political 
antipathies and contribute to its pages. Little by little, 
however, as Jeffrey, the first editor and master spirit of the 
review, felt the ground firm under his feet, he took a bolder 
tone and attacked the scandalous abuses then prevailing in 
England, the cruel game-laws, the disfranchisement of the 
Catholics, the absurd system of Parliamentary representa- 
tion, and slavery in the colonies. The Conservative party 
took alarm ; Scott ceased to contribute to the Edinburgh 
Review, and transferred his services to its newly founded 
rival, the Quarterly; an old Scotch nobleman solemnly 
kicked the offending magazine out of his house into the 
gutter. But with the steady growth of Liberal principles, 
which set in after the fall of Napoleon, the magazine 
advanced in influence, and in the boldness with Avhich it 
set forth its party principles. 

By 1825, the tide of reform had risen liigh. All over 
the (Continent there Avere uprisings against the tyranny of 
legitimate but lawless rulers. The noblest minds in England 
sympathized with the struggle for liberty in Italy and 
Greece, and were striving at home to secure justice and 
equal rights for the depressed and degraded, the Catholic, 
the negro, and the Jew. Jeffrey looked about him for new 
allies in the battle. " Can you not lay your hands," he 
wrote to a friend in London, in January, 1825, " upon some 
clever young man who would write for us ? The original 
supporters of the work are getting old, and either too busy 
or too stupid, and here (in Edinburgh) the young men are 
mostly Tories." The " clever young man " was at hand in 
Macaulay. His contributions to Ktiighfs Quarterly had 
probably come under Jeffrey's notice, but the thing which 
particularly recommended him was a speech delivered at a 
great meeting of the Anti-slavery Society in January of the 
preceding year. The Edinburgh Review spoke witli delight 
of the display of eloquence " so signal for rare and matured 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON MILTON XXV 

excellence, that the most practised orators might well admire 
how it should have come from one wdio then for the first 
time addressed a public assembly." His zeal for liberty, 
hatred of oppression, and flow of impassioned rhetoric 
marked the young orator as the very man for whom Jeffrey 
was looking, and an opportunity was soon found to open to 
him the pages of the Edinburgh Review. 

Early in the year 1825, there appeared a translation of a 
newly discovered work of Milton, the Treatise on Christian 
Doctrine. Macaulay, in the first sentences of his essay, 
gives the story of its discovery, but recent research has 
shown that he was wa'ong in his conjectural account of how 
the manuscript came to be among the State papers. Pro- 
fessor Masson has discovered that the original manuscript, 
along with a copy of jNIilton's State Letters, was left in the 
hands of a young scholar, Daniel Skinner (perhaps a relative 
of Milton's old friend, Cyriac Skinner), who sometimes acted 
as Milton's amanuensis, drawn to him, as he said, by " a 
great desire and ambition of some of his knowledge." 
Milton wished these works to be published after his death, 
and since no license for their printing could be obtained 
from the English government, which had condemned two of 
the poet's books to be burned by the common hangman, 
young Skinner sent them over to the famous Dutch printer, 
Elzevir, at Amsterdam. Before they had gone through the 
press, however, Mr. Skinner had received a government 
appointment, which was promptly withdrawn when it was 
learned that he had been infected with Milton's friendship, 
and was actually proposing to publish some of that detested 
rebel's work. In great alarm for his future, Mr. Skinner 
declared that he had never imbibed any of Milton's opinions, 
withdrew the manuscript from the printer, whom he induced 
to write to the English government, declaring that he had 
never meant to publish them, and sent them home to his 
father, the Mr. Skinner, Merchant, whose name appears on 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

the envelope, by whom in turn they were handed over to 
the authorities. 

It seemed to Jeffrey that the appearance of this book 
furnished a happy opportunity for an essay on INIilton, 
which should at once defend his works from the aspersions 
cast npon them by the good old Tory, Dr. Johnson, whose 
Life of MRton was at that time the standard authority 
in England, and justify the political opinions of the poet, 
which had been the real cause of the Doctor's attacks. The 
task was intrusted to Macaulay, and he performed it in a 
manner to delight the heart of his employer. 

Matthew Arnold complains of the "brilliant, metallic 
style of the essay, making strong points, alternating invec- 
tive with eulogy, wrapping in a robe of rhetoric the thing 
it represents." 15ut this is exactly Macaulay's purpose. 
His essay was meant to be, not a cold, critical investigation 
of Milton's claims to the title of a classic, but an impas- 
sioned defence of a poet who was a lover of freedom against 
critics who were lovers of authority. If he could make 
strong points and gain admirers, so miicli the better for his 
purpose. The eulogy was for the Liberal poet, the invective 
for his Tory detractors. Macaulay identified himself with 
the great conflict in Milton's days, as he was soon to do 
with the struggle for reform of his own time, and the essay 
is from first to last an ex parte plea, a defence, conducted by 
a brilliant young enthusiast, of " the genius and virtues 
of John Milton, poet, statesman, i)hilosopher, the glory of 
English literature, the champion and martyr of English 
liberty." 

It is not the purpose of this introduction to examine 
Macaulay's plea in detail, to point out where he has over- 
stated his case, and to supply details that he has omitted. 
To do so would be to presujipose a far greater knowledge, 
not only of Milton's life and work, but also of the history of 
his times, social and political, than is likely to be in the 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON MILTON XXVii 

possession of any schoolboy preparing for the college ex- 
aminations. Kor is it worth while to enter into the merits 
and defects of the celebrated " style," which set Jeffrey to 
wondering where the author could have " picked it up." Its 
merits are such as to force themselves upon the mind of any 
intelligent reader ; its defects may be left to dawn gradually 
upon the judgment of the student of English literature in 
general, and English prose style in particular. Macaulay 
himself was by no means insensible to his faults. In the 
preface to the collected edition of his essays, he says, "The 
essay on Milton, which was written when the author was 
fresh from college, and which contains scarcely a para- 
graph such as his maturer judgment approves, still remains 
overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament." At a 
somewhat earlier date, to be sure, he had defended this 
ornamentation as permissible, if not even necessary, in 
periodical works, in order to attract the otherwise careless 
reader. Whether for the sake of the instant impression 
periodical works may be allowed to be "even viciously 
florid," to use Macaulay's own words, is a question of 
literary casuistry which Ave need not here discuss. But so 
much may be said : in spite of his faults of omission and 
commission, Macaulay is here, as nearly always, in the right ; 
right in his admiration of Milton's genius, right in his eulogy 
of Milton's character, right in his championship of Milton's 
principles. And it is far better for the young reader to try 
to catch something of the young writer's enthusiasm for his 
hero, than to repeat at second hand the comments of colder 
and more cautious critics upon his fervent eulogy. 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 



A Sketch vf ^Milton's Life axd Chakactek 

Ix order to supplement Macaxilay's essay, which deals, 
as we have seen, in a strictly partisan fashion with Milton's 
poetry and public conduct, some knowledge of the events 
of Milton's life and of the environment that helped to mould 
his character is necessary to the student. Very admirable 
biographical sketches of Milton have been written by Mark 
Pattison and Dr. Garnett, and one of these should if pos- 
sible be read. In case, however, the student cannot obtain 
either of them, or if pressure of work prevents his reading 
them, the following sketch will be found to supply the main 
facts of the poet's life. 

John Milton was born in 1G08, in Bread Street, London, 
not far from the Mermaid Tavern, where Shakespeare and 
Ben Jonson held high revel with their friends. He came of 
good yeoman stock, in Oxfordshire. His father had been 
driven from home for abandoning the family creed of Roman 
Catholicism, and had made a little independent fortune for 
himself as a scrivener, or, as Ave would say to-day, a business 
lawyer. He was a man of education and culture, a graduate 
of Oxford, and a musician of some note. He gave his son 
the best education in his power, securing a private tutor for 
him, and sending him to the famous grammar school of St. 
Paul's, in London. 

The boy was devoted to his books, after his twelfth year 
seldom quitting them before midnight, a practice which no 
doubt was the first cause of his later blindness. But he 
Avas no mere bookworm ; his father himself taught him 
music, and he became a skilful organist. From the age of 
ten, his first biographer tells us, he was a poet and read with 
delight the poems of older English singers, especially those 
of Chaucer and Spenser. At sixteen he entered Christ Col- 
lege, Cambridge, where he remained for seven years, taking 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER xxix 

the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. His proud 
temper and impatience of restraint seem to have shown 
themselves in the first period of his college life by a quarrel 
with his tutor. There is a tradition that he was whipped 
at college, and it seems quite clear that he was suspended 
for a time. On his return, however, he was transferred to 
another tutor and went through the rest of his college life 
unblamed. He was nicknamed the Lady of Christ's from 
his beauty of face, long curling hair, and slender figure. 
But there was nothing weak or feminine "in his body or 
mind. He was a good fencer, and utterly fearless of danger, 
and he had the higher courage of his own convictions. He 
had been destined for the ministry, but as he grew to man- 
hood he came more and more to detest the ritual which the 
bishops were imposing upon the Church of England, till at 
last finding out, as he said afterward, that he who would 
take orders must subscribe slave, he abandoned all thought 
of the Church and left Cambridge, at the age of twenty-three, 
for his father's country home at Horton. Here for five 
years he enjoyed, to use his own words, " a complete holiday 
in turning over the Latin and Greek authors," broken only 
by an occasional journey to London to buy books or to 
"learn something new in mathematics or in music." He 
had already begun to write poetry, the famous Ode to the 
Xativitii had been composed in his twenty -first year ; but 
this period of uninterrupted leisure gave birth to some of 
the loveliest poems in our language, U Allegro, II Penseroso, 
the Masque of Comus, and the elegy of Lycidas. 

After his mother's death he started on a long Continental 
tour. Evidently his father, who had already done so much 
for him, stopped at no expense in completing his education, 
for the cost of such a tour in those days was reckoned at 
about five thousand dollars a year. Milton visited Paris, 
Florence, where he was most cordially received by the poets 
and scholars of the lovely town, Rome, where it is said his 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

frank avowal of Protestant principles enraged the Jesuits, 
and Naples, where he met the aged friend of one of his 
favorite poets, Tasso. He had meant to visit Sicily and 
Greece, but the news of the growing troubles in England 
changed his plans. "I thought it base," he said, "to be 
travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens 
were fighting for liberty at home." So he retraced his steps, 
stopping once more at Florence, where he visited the blind 
philosopher, Galileo, just released from the prison of the 
Inquisition. Tlience he pushed on to Geneva, the mother 
city of the militant Protestantism, of which he himself was 
to become so strong a champion. In 1639, after an absence 
of some fifteen months, he returned to England. 

With this return the second period of Milton's life begins. 
The tyranny of Charles was in the very act of dissolution. 
The meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 was the signal 
for a thorough-going reform, and Milton jilunged eagerly 
into the struggle. There is no sign that he ever thought of 
taking up arms in the civil war which broke out two years 
later; his pen was more useful to the " good old cause " than 
his sword could have been, and with the exception of a few 
sonnets, his work for twenty years was a series of prose 
pamphlets written in defence of liberty, as he conceived it, 
in Church and State and domestic life. It is not worth 
while to give here a catalogue of these. jNIilton's prose is 
little read to-day, far less than it should be. But a brief 
note on their subjects will serve to show the aims of ]\Iil- 
ton's activity during this period. He wrote, first of all, 
against the bishops, whose intolerance and petty persecu- 
tions had provoked the bitterest resentment among the 
Puritans, and whose overthrow was thought to be the first 
necessity for a free and reformed national church. He 
defended the freedom of the press against the Presbyterian 
successors of tlie bishops, who were endeavoring to stifle 
all hostile criticism. He proposed to substitute a new 



|l'i"T V I 'li J '",'1' 1 1 'i 1 1 I 



I |.,^'i, I |||. |„„,l|'"|l,li'll l|ll|IM.|l|| 

'ii"V,ii'i 



*.'t. , , ■ I'. 




CHARLES I. 
After the painting by Sir Peter Lely, after the lost Van Dyke. 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER xxxi 

and practical method of education for the okl formularies 
which still dominated Oxford and Cambridge. He scandal- 
ized many of his friends by declaring for a more liberal 
theory of divorce than that permitted by the laws of Eng- 
land, " for he in vain boasts of liberty in the senate or in 
the forum, who languishes under the vilest servitude to an 
inferior at home." After the execution of the king he 
undertook the defence of the act against the clamorous out- 
cry of the Royalists in England and on the Continent, and 
as Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth he conducted its 
foreign correspondence. After he had resigned his post, and 
on the very eve of the Restoration, he wrote a number of 
pamphlets in the vain endeavor to persuade the nation to 
hold fast to its republican form of government. The 
Restoration of course put an end to his political activity. 
The wonder is that it did not put an end to his life. Two 
of his books were burnt by the common hangman, and that 
official might have operated on the poet himself, had not 
some friends in the new Parliament cleverly managed to 
keep his name out of the list of exceptions from the general 
amnesty. After a brief period of hiding, Milton was free 
to spend his life as he pleased among his books and to 
resume his long-abandoned project of writing an epic poem. 
But a few words on his domestic relations are here necessary, 
in order that we may know the circumstances under which 
his last years were spent. 

In the summer of 1643, IMilton, then a man of thirty-five, 
left London for the country. When he came back a month 
later, he brought a wife with him. Her name was Mary 
Powell, the daughter of a Cavalier country gentleman living 
near Oxford. She was a girl of seventeen, and the change 
from the gay life of her father's house to the sober seclusion 
of the Puritan scholar's home seems to have been too great 
a trial for her. 'Within a month after the marriage, she 
left her husband for a visit to her parents, promising to 



XXX 11 INTRODUCTION 

return in the autumn. But tini(3 passed, and she did not 
come. Milton wrote to her, but received no answer; and a 
messenger whom he sent for her was dismissed with insult. 
It was at this time that he wrote the pamphlets on divorce 
already mentioned, and there can be no doubt that his own 
unhappiness inspired him to plead for a greater freedom in 
breaking a tie which linked two imcongenial spirits in 
mutual wretchedness. There is even a tradition that ]\IiI- 
ton considered himself free to marry again, and was actually 
contemplating su(di a step. But siaddenly, about two years 
after she had left him, his runaway wife came back, thre\\' 
herself at his feet, and begged his forgiveness. He par- 
doned her and took her back, and in the following year re- 
ceived into his house her whole family, who had been utterly 
ruined by the fall of the king's party. 

The whole story is a mystery. Why Milton, the Puritan, 
should marry into a Cavalier family ; why the family should 
in June give him their daughter and a month later take her 
away from him ; why the gay girl of seventeen should be will- 
ing to accept a quiet scholar of nearly twice her age and 
almost immediately find it impossible to live with him ; why, 
after a two years' absence, she should return so unexpectedly ; 
and, strangest of all, why Milton should have begun a pam- 
phlet on divorce, as testimony seems to show he did, within 
the honeymoon itself; we can only guess. So much seems 
clear, that the Powells were deeply in delit to IVIilton and 
his fathei'. The marriage may have been patched up by 
them as a means of satisfying a creditor, and Mary Powell's 
return to her husband's house may have been a device of 
her parents to secure a refuge in the evil days that they 
foresaw to be at hand. Milton, on his part, may have been 
fascinated by the beauty and gentle manners of the girl. 
He was a poet as well as a scholar, and had all a poet's 
susceptibility. All the more deeply must he have been 
wounded when he discovered how he had been tricked into 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER xxxiu 

the marriage, and when, instead of the helpmate and loving 
companion that he had hoped for, he found an unwilling 
captive in his home. 

After her return, Mary Powell lived with Milton quietly 
enough until her death, seven years later. She bore him 
three daughters, Anne, Mary, and Deborah, and a son who 
died in infancy. She herself died giving birth to her fourth 
child. Four years after her death Milton married again, 
only to lose his wife some fifteen months later. It was to 
her that he dedicated the beautiful sonnet, beginning : — 

" Methought I saw my late espous6cl saint." 

Shortly after the Restoration Milton married for the third 
time, probably rather with the idea of securing a mother for 
liis three young daughters and an attendant on his own 
wants, than with any hope of enjoying that happiness which 
he must once have looked forward to. 

Even before the death of his first wife, Milton had become 
totally blind. As early as 1650, he had lost the sight of the 
left eye, and was warned by the doctor that if he persisted 
in his studies, he Avould lose that of the other. But just at 
this time he was called on by the Commonwealth to plead 
the cause of England at the bar of Continental Europe. 
The choice lay, as he said, between neglect of a supreme 
duty and the loss of eyesight, and in such a case he could 
not listen to the physician. His chief comfort in the long 
days of darkness — he had twenty-two years more to live — 
was that he had lost his sight in his country's service. 

Macaulay draws a vivid picture of the misfortunes which 
came upon Milton at the Restoration. In some respects it 
is too highly colored. He was not pooi-, although he lost a 
large part of his fortune at this time, nor was he in any 
sense disgraced. But it is well-nigh impossible for any one 
nowadays to conceive the shock which the Restoration must 
have given him. He had looked upon England as a nation 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

chosen by God to do a great work. Under Cromwell, she 
had entered nobly on her mission as the champion of liberty 
and true religion throughout the world. But with the Res- 
toration, she deliberately turned back from the true road, 
and gave herself over to slavery and persecution. The very 
names of republican and saint became terms of derision. 
The blow would have broken a weaker man ; but ]\[ilton's 
proud spirit never faltered. He did not despair, he did not 
waste his life in fruitless plottings against the restored 
tyranny. He withdrew altogether from the world, and took 
up the task that twenty years before he had laid aside for 
his country's sake. He had always meant to be a poet ; he 
had long meant to write a great epic poem, " something so 
written to after-times as they should not willingly let die." 
At first he had planned to write a national epic on King 
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; but during the 
religious controversies which occupied him after his return 
to England, he had fixed upon the Fall of Man as his sub- 
ject. For nearly twenty years the great theme lay ripening 
in his mind. He seems to have begun work on it shortly 
before the Restoration, but he can hardly have done much 
in that distracted time. We are told that he had almost 
completed it in 1663, yet we know that he di<l not work at 
it continuously, composing only when the inspiration Avas 
upon him. " Sometimes, when he lay awake Avhole nights, 
he tried, but not one verse could he make. At other times 
flowed easy his unpremeditated verse. . . . Then at what 
hour soever he rang for his daughter to secure what came." 
He had, of course, to dictate the poem, and an eyewitness 
has left an interesting picture of him, leaning back in his 
easy chair, with his leg thrown over its arm, Avhile he 
recited the great poem in " parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty 
lines." The poem was for the most part composed in the 
winter, for, as Milton told his nephew, "his vein never hap- 
})ily flowed but from the Autumnal E(piinoctial to the 




OLIVER CROMWELL. . 
After the painting by Pieter van der Plaes. 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER XXXV 

Vernal." In 1665, the year of the Great Plague, he showed 
the manuscript, completed and revised, to a young friend, 
the Quaker El wood, and two years later the poem was pub- 
lished. The agreement between the poet and the printer 
still exists ; Milton got $25 down, and was to get $25 more 
for each edition that was sold. In all, he received $50, and 
his widow $35 more in full for all her rights. Not a great 
sum for such a work, but the value of Paradise Lost to 
]\tilton's fame and to English literature was something that 
could not be measured by money. 

The friend to whom Milton first showed his completed 
poem said to him gravely, '"'Thou hast said much here of 
Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?" 
The poet said nothing, but fell into a muse. Some years 
later he answered the question by showing his friend the 
}>()em of Paradise Regained. It is, in brief, a counterpart 
to the former poem. Adam had listened to the Tempter 
and lost Paradise ; Jesus, the second representative of man- 
kind, repulsed Satan and regained the blissful seat. The 
poem is an expanded narrative of the story of the temp- 
tation of (Jhrist as recorded in the Gospels. It has little of 
the })ower of Paradise Lost ; there is practically no action in 
it, and little delineation of character. But the old charm of 
Milton's grand style still remains, and some of the speeches 
are in his finest manner. 

Samson Agonistes is a drama in the classical style. It 
represents the last day of the life of Samson and his 
victorious death, when, like a wrestler (Agonistes), he pulled 
down the pillars of the Philistine temple, and brought 
destruction alike iipon himself and his enemies. Macaulay 
has pointed out correctly enough its chief fault as a play, 
but he has entirely overlooked its great and peculiar charm, 
the identification of the poet with the hero of the drama. 
Like Samson, Milton had once led the .chosen people in 
warfare against God's enemies. Like Samson he had 



XXXVl INTRODUCTION 

failed, and now, old and blind, was the sport and laughter 
of his enemies. He had something of the old heroic strain 
in his blood, and would gladly have gone to death could he 
have pulled the tyranny of the Restoration crashing about 
the heads of Charles and James. And it is this revelation 
of the poet's mind, far more than " the severe dignity of the 
style or the wild melody of the choral passages," which 
makes Samson Ayonistes, to him who reads it understand- 
ingly, one of the most solemn and pathetic things in English 
literature. Here, as nowhere else, we seem to see the noblest 
of our poets opening his heart to us. 

Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistcs were published 
together in 1670. Milton lived four years longer, but his 
Avork was done. Not that he rested from study and 
composition; his studious habit had taken too firm hold 
upon him to be cast aside. In these last years he completed 
and revised his Treatise on Christian Doctrine, and worked 
away on various compilations, a text-book of Logic, a Latin 
Dictionary, and so on. ]>ut these were mere tasks to pass 
the time ; there is nothing in them to add to his fame ; it 
stands secure iipon the poems of his youth, the Sonnets and 
one or two of the pam])lilets of his middle age, and the two 
great epics and the drama of his last years. 

We have some pleasant pictures of Milton in the last 
years of his life. His daughters indeed showed themselves 
anything but dutiful. We hear that they cheated him in 
the marketing, sold his books without his knowledge, and 
had at last to be sent away to learn a trade. But his wife 
cared for him, and young friends gathered round him eager 
to read to him and catch something of his knowledge. He 
rose very early, at four in sumnu^r, at live in winter, 
listened to a chapter of the Hebrew Bible — one wonders 
what friends were devoted enough to come to him at such 
hours — and passed the morning with an amanuensis, reading 
and writing. He took a little exercise, walking in the 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER xxxvii 

garden and swinging in a macliino, and ke})t u[) his mnsic, 
playing on the bass-viol and the organ. In the evening 
friends came in for a talk, and after a frngal supper of olives 
or " some light thing " he smoked a pipe and went to bed 
at nine. The little record of the pipe before bedtime is a 
very human touch. One is too often inclined to think of 
Milton as something remote and unearthly in his purity and 
stateliness. But the pipe seems to bring him nearer to us. 
What a life of hopes and struggles and defeats and victories 
the old blind poet had to think over as he sat and smoked 
before the fire in the long dark evenings of later years. He 
died at last of gout, inherited, no doubt, from some hard- 
drinking ancestor, for he himself had always been most 
temperate. 

Milton's character has been variously judged by his 
biographers. Perhaps none of them has spoken so highly 
of him as Macaulay, yet it would be hard to say that 
Macaulay's praise is unwarranted. But there are certain 
features in the poet's character that Macaulay, in the role of 
eulogist, passes over unnoticed. One of these, and perhaps the 
most striking, is his immense self-confidence ; self-conceit we 
cannot call it, that is the quality of a smaller man, nor can 
we call it pride, except in some special meaning of that 
word. But Milton was one of the men who are ahvays 
supremely sure that they are in the right, and in that 
confidence go on their way unfaltering. This character- 
istic shows itself in Milton's work as well as in his life. 
The fierce wrath which he pours out on his adversaries, the 
scorn and contempt with which he regards their action and 
their argument, is not because they are the adversaries of 
him, John Milton, but because they are the enemies of the 
Right of which he is the divinely appointed champion. 
This quality accounts, too, for his lack of sympathy with 
the common weaknesses of men. Milton was no Shake- 
speare or Chaucer. He could never have dwelt lovingly 



XXXVlll TNTROBUCTTON 

on the figure of fat Jack Palstaff, and he wouki have 
administered l*ride's rurge to the Canterbury Pilgrims. 
And the hick of humor, so noticeable in all his work, springs 
from this want of human sympathy. Life was too serious 
a matter for Milton to joke about; in his works the only 
people who joke are the devils. 

This quality tended to make, and in the end did make, 
Milton a lonely man. Except in early youth he seems never 
to have had an intimate friend. Foreigners indeed came to 
visit the illustrious scholar, and young men gathered round 
him to read and listen to him. And in such circles he is 
said to have been the life of the company. But one cannot 
imagine JNIilton on terms of intimacy with anything lower 
than an archangel. In Wordsworth's splendid phrase, "his 
soul was like a star, and dwelt a})art." 

It is foolish to wish the great men of the past other than 
they were. If they have their defects they have their 
corresponding virtues, and the two are usually too closely 
allied to be separated by a human hand. If Milton was 
narrower than Shakespeare or ('liaTicer he was also loftier, 
and it is hardly too much to say that it was the very narrow- 
ness that made him lofty. To the serene self-confidence 
which robbed him of sympathy and humor are due both the 
spotless purity of his youth and the heroic fortitude of his 
old age. 

Milton was from first to last a lover of freedom and a 
lover of truth. To him the one seemed to spring directl}' 
from the other — "Ye shall know tlie truth, and the truth 
shall make you free," — and perhaps the noblest passages 
in his prose are his rapturous outbursts in praise of Truth 
and her attendant Liberty. Milton belonged i)roperly to no 
})arty of his time. One l)y one in his search for truth he 
l)ass('d by them all, until he stood alone. Yet he was essen- 
tially a Turitan. Macaulay denies this, and declares that 
his nature selected and drew to itself whatever was great 



A SKETCH OF MILTON'S LIFE AND CHARACTER XXXIX 

and good in any party. But men's natures do not compose 
themselves in this fashion. Milton undoubtedly was free 
from some of the most unpleasant characteristics of advanced 
Puritans, — a freedom easily explained by his early education 
and environment — but these characteristics ai*e superficial. 
At heart Milton was always a Puritan, and enough has been 
said of his character to show that he had some, at least, of 
their faults as well as their virtues. 

Milton was not only a Puritan, he was the poet of Puritan- 
ism, and his work sums up a mighty movement that extends 
over a century of English history. Puritanism took its rise 
under Queen Elizabeth, when England was fighting for her 
life against a foreign foe ; it came to an end about the trine 
that the Revolution of 1688 freed her definitely from domes- 
tic tyranny. This period is the heroic age of England in 
literature as in history, and Milton closes up that age. Hi.s 
quick sense of beauty, his lyric charm, his daring imagina- 
tion, alike connect him with the great poets of Elizabeth's 
day, and distinguish him from the school of common-sense 
in rhyme that was to follow. And no figure could more 
fitly close the heroic age than that of the blind poet who, 
amid the ruin of his fortunes and the wreck of all his hopes, 
sat down unmoved to write the epic of the lost cause, and 
justify the ways of God to man. 



xl INTRODUCTION 



IXTRODUCTIOX TO THE EsSAY ON AdDISON 

This cliarniing essay, like all of Macaulay's, was written 
for the Edinburgh Review, and appeared in July, 1843, the 
last but one of his contributions to that magazine. It was 
called forth by the publication of The Life of Joseph 
Addison by Miss Aikin, a well-known woman of letters of 
that day. She seems to have done the preliminary work for 
this book in a very careless fashion, for Macaulay discovered 
in his perusal of the advance sheets a number of most dis- 
creditable errors, which his advice enabled her to correct. 
Even with this aid the book was very faulty, and Macaulay 
found not less than forty " gross errors as to matters of fact " 
in the first volume. These he corrected in a series of foot- 
notes to the essay, reserving the body of the work for his 
own presentation of the life and times of Addison. This 
separation of the. temporary from the permanent was due, 
no doubt, to the higher opinion of his essays which Macaulay 
was beginning to entertain. He had at first regarded them 
as merely ephemeral productions, but the large sale of col- 
lected editions in America and the steady flow of these into 
England had forced him, in the early part of this year, to 
make his own collection and revision for the English public. 
This task gave him an opportunity to compare his earliest 
with the latest essays, and to estimate his progress in the 
art. He seems, on the whole, to have been well satisfied. 
" The most hostile critic must admit, I think," he writes to 
the editor of the Edinburgh Revieio, " that I have improved 
greatly as a writer. The third volume seems to nie worth 
two of the second, and the second worth ten of the first.'' 
Of the Essay on Addison, which came out soon after the 
publication of his collected essays, he writes to the same 
friend, " I shall not be surprised if both you and the public 
think it a failure, but I own that I am partial to it," 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON ADDISON xli 

Macaiilay had good reason for this partiality. Of all his 
biographies, " after the manner of Pkitarch," the Essay on 
Addison is perhaps the most successful. It lacks, indeed, 
the youthful enthusiasm which flames through the JEssay on 
Milton, but it is, on the other hand, free from much of the 
exuberance of style and love of paradox which mars that 
early Avork. The subject was one on which he had read and 
thought since his earliest childhood. The great writers of 
the Augustan age. Swift, Pope, and Addison, Avere to 
Macaulay what Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron are to us ; 
and even more, for we may well doubt whether the greatest 
lover of the Romantic poets to-day has steeped his mind in 
the life, social and political, and in the literature, good, bad, 
and indifferent, of their day, as Macaulay had done in the 
life and letters of Queen Anne's time. Moreover, the sub- 
ject did not demand the possession of great critical ability. 
Maca\ilay was not of the first order of literary critics — a 
fact which he himself fully recognized. " I am not success- 
ful," he once said, ''in analyzing the effect of works of 
genius. I have never written a page of criticism on poetry 
which I would not burn if I had the power." But the 
merits of Addison lie so plainly on the surface, that there 
was no such need of this critical aualysis as in the case, let 
lis say, of Byron, or the dramatists of the Restoration. A 
frank, straightforward eulogy of Addison's charm of style, 
kindly humor, and pure morality, is all that Macaulay gives, 
and really all that the theme demands. 

But on the other hand, Macaulay's peculiar faculty of his- 
toric imagination found here hxW scope for its display. As 
we read this essay, we are carried back, as by magic, into the 
stirring life of a past age : Marlborough is campaigning on 
the Rhine and Danube ; Whigs and Tories are plotting and 
counter-plotting at home ; the coffee houses are crowded with 
the gay, bustling, talkative society of the day, smoking, 
drinking, passing about the freshest bit of news or scandal. 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

laughing impartially over Addison's happiest flash of humor 
or Pope's bitterest lampoon. The Kit-Cat Club is toasting 
the lovely Countess of Manchester, and the Squires of the 
October are drinking confusion to all foreigners in floods of 
home-brewed ale ; while in the dark streets a party of 
jMohawks, with AVarwick at their head, are beating the 
watch and rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill. 
This dead past Avas very much alive to Macaulay, and far 
more real than the world about him — except, perhaps, the 
world of politics. 

Unfortunately Macaulay's keen interest in contemporary 
politics combined with his historic imagination to give a 
partisan color to his presentation of the past. He transfers 
his bitter prejudice against the Conservatives of his own day 
to the Tories of Queen Anne's reign. He can see nothing 
good in them, as he can see nothing to blame in the conduct 
of the Whigs. His imagination re-echoes in our ears the 
roar of obloquy that followed a AYhig ministry out of office 
in 1710 ; his party spirit suppresses the fact that for five 
years this nainistry had poured out English blood in torrents 
to gratify the ambition of their great leader and feed fat 
the ancient grudge they bore the kiygof France. The same 
party spirit influences even Macaulay's concejation of private 
persons: Swift went over from the Whigs to the Tories, 
therefore Swift is described as a renegade who sacrificed 
honor to revenge ; Pope was the most brilliant of the band 
of wits who formed the opposition to Addison's little senate 
of Whig scribblers, and had even dared to attack the blame- 
less Addison himself, therefore Pope is pelted with every 
epithet at Macaulay's command. It would take too long to 
point out here the weighty reasons which led Swift to his 
change of sides, or to attempt an analysis, if not a defence, 
of the character of Pope, the strangest compound of sensi- 
tiveness and selfishness, bitterness and generosity, duplicity 
and genius, that our race has produced ; but so much at 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON ADDISON xliil 

least may he said, Macaulay's estimate of neither of these 
men is for a moment to be taken as a final jndgment. 

Some other cause than party prejudice, however, must be 
sought for to explain Macaulay's onslaught upon Richard 
Steele, — a good Whig, and, but for a trifling difference at 
the last, a life-long friend of Addison. The reason is prob- 
ably to be found in two characteristic qualities of Macaulay 
as a writer, his inability to comprehend mixed and varied 
characters, and his overfondness for strong colors and sharp 
contrasts. The first of these sprang from his own simplicity 
of character, and consistency of action. Apparently he 
never sinned nor repented in his life ; and his moral judg- 
ments on less fortunate men have always in them something 
of the Puritan, and occasionally something of the Pharisee. 
That a man could be imprudent, reckless, and irregular, yet 
at bottom a man of high ideals and generous instincts, was 
a fact so repugnant to his conception of life that he preferred 
to reject it altogether, and, while exaggerating the misdeeds 
of his victim, ignore or explain away the good qualities 
that lay Avithin. And his love of color and contrast led 
him, unconsciously, no doubt, to paint Steele's morals as 
black as possible, to serve as a foil to the snowy purity of 
Addison's character, and to raidv Steele's talents as low as 
possible, to heighten the greater genius of his chosen hero. 
For a fidl vindication of Steele's character and capabilities 
the stiulent is referred to the essay b}^ Forster, written in 
direct contradiction of Macaulay's view, or to the charm- 
ing life of Steele by Austin Dobson. It will be sufiicient 
here to deny peremptorily some of the most sweeping of 
Macaulay's charges, and then leave to the student the not 
unpleasant task of examining the evidence. Steele never 
lived a " vagrant life " ; he had nothing either of the rake 
or the swindler in his composition. There is not a shadow 
of proof for the assertion that he ever " diced himself into 
a spunging house, or drank himself into a fever''; nor is 



xliv INTT^ODUCTION 

there any slightest evidence that Addison regarded him with 
scorn — though this scorn was, in INlacaulay's phrase, not 
unmingled with kindness. As a matter of fact, the scorn is 
Macaulay's own feeling toward Steele, and he unconsciously 
transfers it to Addison. Addison's sole attempt to keep 
Steele out of scrapes consisted, so far as we know, in advis- 
ing him to hold his peace, when Steele thought that his duty 
to his country bade him cry aloud and spare not. Addison 
did not introduce Steele to " the great," nor procure a good 
place for him; on the contrary, Steele was a prominent figure 
in the social and political world when Addison was compara- 
tively unknown. If Addison lent him money, Steele repaid 
it ; for the only direct evidence of a loan is Steele's letter 
to his wife saying that he has paid Mr. Addison his whole 
£1000. As for the story that Addison was once forced to 
repay himself by selling Steele out, it rests solely on the 
authority of the scoundrel. Savage, who had his own reasons 
for hating Steele; and, even if it be true, it does not, one 
would think, exactly reflect credit on Addison. The vivid 
little picture of "poor Dick" begging a loan on the i)lea 
that he has not bite nor sup in the house, and then squan- 
dering Addison's hard-earned money on cham]»agne and 
sweetmeats, is as purely fictitious as any scene in Thackeray 
or Dickens. 

In the world of letters, too, Macaulay's attempt to exalt 
Addison by l)elittling Steele is quite out of aecoril with the 
facts of the case. Steele was by far the more original of 
the two ; he founded the Tatler, determined its character, 
and made a success of it before Addison began his contribu- 
tions. The character of Sir Roger de C'overley was invented 
by Steele, and he contributed more than one touch to its 
development. AVe may well admit the claim of Addison to 
rank as the more finished artist, without denying Steele's 
happy boast that it was to him the world owed its Addison. 
And there are some few papers by the lesser of the partners 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ESSAY ON ADDISON xlv 

in literary fame that for sweet and simple hnmor, for honest 
and sturdy morality, for a iine sense of the })athos of human 
life, may rank with the best of his more famous friend's. 

Enough, and perhaps too much, has been said on this sub- 
ject. But it is only fair to the young reader, who, in all 
probability, makes his entrance through this essay into the 
fascinating circle of the " wits " of Queen Anne's day, to 
warn hiiu against so great an injustice as is done here to 
one of the gentlest, kindest, and most lovable of their 
number. 

The Essa^i on ^kldison is, as has been said, essentially a 
brief biography. The facts of Addison's life are so well 
and so fully told here, that it seems quite unnecessary to add 
to this introduction any biographical notice. On the other 
hand, the essay abounds in references to the history, jjoli- 
tics, and statesmen of the time, which demand for their com- 
})reheusion a fuller knowledge of English history than can 
be presumed in the average American schoolboy. A brief 
sketch of English history, from the accession of James II. 
to that of George I., is therefore appended, which should 
be carefully read by the student before entering upon the 
essay itself, and referred to thereafter during his study of 
the work. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 



Ax Outline of Ex(;lish History from 1685 to 1715 

A\'hex James II. came to the throne, in 1685, lie foiiiid 
the royal authority stronger in England than it had been 
since the first years of his father's reign, more than half a 
century before. He spent the three years of his reign in 
attempting to make this authority absolute, and only suc- 
ceeded in provoking a revolution, which drove him from 
the throne and rendered absolute nu)narcliy henceforward 
an impossibility in England. He did this by such a series 
of attacks on the law, the i)roperty, and the religion of his 
subjects as to leave them no choice but tliat between slavery 
and rebellion. Since the days of Cromwell Englishmen 
detested the very name of rebellion ; but they had no mind 
to sacrifice all their hard-earned rights to the king's pleasure, 
and at last rebellion broke out, in consequence of an event 
which James had looked forward to as destined to perpetu- 
ate the royal power. This was the birth, in 1688, of his son 
and heir. James had already two daughters by his first 
wife : JMary, married to her cousin, AVilliam of (Grange, and 
Anne, married to Prince George of Dennuirk. They were 
both very popular in England, women of good character, 
and stanch Protestants. So long, therefore, as it was 
believed that one of them would soon inherit the throne, 
j)eople were content to endure the tyranny of James in the 
hope that his death — he was over fifty Avhen he became 
king — would terminate the evil time, lint in the birth of 
this prince, Avho would doubtless be bred up in his fatlici''s 
religion and arbitrary ideas, the nation foresaw an indefinite 
prolongation of the tyranny. A story was spread al)out that 
the child was not the son of James at all, but an impostor, 
smuggled into the palace in a warming-pan to be palmed 
off on the nation as the true heir. There was not the 
slightest fouiulation for this story; but it was very gener- 




QUEEN ANNE. 
After the painting by Godfrey Kneller. 



AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH HISTORY, 1(385 TO 1715 xlvii 

ally believed at the time, and the most influential men in 
England invited William of Orange to come over and 
deliver the nation. 

He did so, and the royal tyranny fell to pieces at once. 
James fled to France, and a representative convention 
declared the throne vacant and offered the crown to William 
and Mary in joint sovereignty, passing at the same time the 
famous Declaration of Right.^ 

William reigned in conjunction with his wife till 1694, 
when she died, and then alone till 1702. He was by no 
means popular in England. He was cold, haughty, and 
reserved in manner, and as a foreigner was intensely disliked 
by the majority of his subjects. All his interests Avere cen- 
tred in continental politics, especially in checking the enor- 
mous power of France, at that time the champion of absolute 
monarchy and religious intolerance. To Avithstand France 
it was necessary for William to secure the support of Eng- 
land in men and money, and to gain this he submitted to 
both injuries and insults from the English Parliament. The 
nation Avas at this time divided into the parties of Whigs 
and Tories, the former on the whole supporting AYilliam, the 
latter opposing him at every turn, and constantly intriguing 
with the exiled James. 

William's reign was almost entirely taken up Avith Avar 
against Louis XIV. In spite of several defeats he finally- 
forced that monarch to make peace and by the treaty of 
Ryswick in 1697 to disoAvn James, Avhom he had been sup- 
porting, and to acknoAvledge AYilliam as the laAvful king of 
England. Shortly after this treaty Parliament passed the 
Act of Settlement, determining the succession to the throne. 
It Avas to go on AVilliam's death to the Princess Anne, and 
after her, as the last of her children had already died, to 
Sophia, the Avife of the Elector of Hanover, or to her son. 
This lady Avas the grand-daughter of James I., and her son, 
1 See note on 1. 1135 of the Essay on Milton. 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

who subsequently became George I. of England, was thus 
the second cousin of the son of James II., variously known 
as the Old Pretender and as the Chevalier de St. George. 
Even setting this prince aside, there were other descendants 
of James I. who had by hereditary right a better title to the 
crown of England than Sophia, but they were all Roman 
Catholics, and the nation had suffered too much from 
James II. to allow another Roman Catholic sovereign on 
the throne. 

In 1698 and 1700 William and Louis negotiated the two 
Partition Treaties for the division of the Spanish monarchy. 
They were very unpopular in England, and those ministers 
of William who were suspected of having a hand in the 
negotiations, among them Addison's generous patron, Hali- 
fax, were threatened with impeachment by the House of 
Commons. The House was at this time strongly Tory, and 
its refusal to support William compelled him to stand in- 
active while Louis broke the Partition Treaty and accepted 
the throne of Spain for his grandson.^ But Louis's next 
act roused a flame of indignation in England, and precipi- 
tated the War of the Spanish Succession ; he visited the 
bedside of the dying James, and promised him to recognize 
his son as the legitimate king of Great Britain. This open 
violation of the treaty of Ryswick, the insolence with which 
Louis disregarded the Act of Succession, and the implied 
threat that he would some day assist the Pretender to regain 
the throne by force, were quite enough to cause a rapid 
revulsion of feeling in England. In a month the country 
was as hot for war as it had been cold before. William 
then formed the Grand Alliance of England, Austria, Hol- 
land, and some minor German states, and planned to open 
the war in the spring of 1702. But in March he was thrown 
from his horse and died shortly afterward. 

Anne's accession to the throne did not materially alter 
1 See note on 1. 721 of the Essai/ on A(hUson. 



AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 1085 TO 1715 xlix 

the situation. She chose, it is true, Tories for her ministers, 
but their great leader, Marlborough, was as eager for the 
war as William had been. His chief ally in this policy was 
Godolphin, the Lord Treasurer, who for the next eight 
years directed the home affairs, as Marlborough did the 
foreign relations of England. Macaulay has pointed out in 
the essay on Addison, how these statesmen drifted away 
little by little from their own party and sought the support 
of the Whigs, who were heart and soul for the war, whereas 
the Tories were opposed on principle to foreign alliances, 
and would gladly have made peace on a promise from Louis 
to disown the Pretender. After Marlborough's first great 
victories at Blenheim and Eamillies, a definite alliance was 
formed between his followers among the Tories, and the 
Whigs under Halifax and Somers. These statesmen were 
recalled to office ; Marlborough's son-in-law, Sunderland, one 
of the most violent of the Whigs, was made Secretary of 
State, and it was resolved to push the war till Louis was 
brought to his knees. Not long after this Harley and Boling- 
broke, two leaders of the Tories, were driven out of office, 
and the Ministry became altogether Whig. 

But a great reaction against the war was taking place in 
the mind of the queen, and in the nation at large. With 
the queen it was wholly a personal matter. Anne was by 
this time heartily sick of her old favorite, the Duchess of 
Marlborough, and her dislike extended to the duke and the 
war party in general. The nation, too, was growing weary 
of the war, and was quite ready to listen to the proposals 
for peace which Louis was now offering. He was willing 
to grant everything the allies asked, except to join them in 
driving his grandson by arms from the throne of Spain. 
But Marlborough, who was earning great glory, and making 
much money in the war, insisted on this point, and so the 
fighting went on. In 1709, Marlborough won his last great 
victory at Malplaquet, but with such a fearful loss of life 



1 INTRODUCTION 

as to slux'k all England into sol)riety. From this time events 
moved rai)idly toward the downfall of Marlborough and the 
Whigs. Toward the close of 1709, Sacheverell, a popular 
preacher in London, made a violent onslaught on the Minis- 
try, denouncing the AVhig principles, and declaring that the 
Church was in danger at their hands. Godolphin, whom he 
had personally attacked, insisted on prosecuting him before 
the House of Lords. This step was represented as a perse- 
cution of the Church ; the mob of London took sides with 
their favorite preacher, and after the trial, which resulted 
in a mere nominal sentence, Sacheverell travelled through 
England, inflaming the passions of the country gentlemen 
against the Whigs. The queen was emboldened by the dis- 
play of popular sentiment to take action against her min- 
isters. She refused Marlborough's request to be made 
Commander-in-Chief for life, and turned the duchess out of 
all her offices at court. She dismissed Sunderland and 
Godolphin from office, and recalled Harley and Bolingbroke. 
A general election in 1710 returned a strong Tory majority 
to the House of f'ommons, which at once took steps to bring 
the war to a close. Marlborough Avas removed from his 
place as Commander-in-Chief, the English troops ceased to 
take active part in the fighting, and in the spring of 1713 
the Peace of Utrecht closed the "War of the Spanish Suc- 
cession. Louis obtained far more favorable terms than he 
had offered a few years before ; but the treaty was none the 
less popular in England, for the nation felt that the power 
of France had been so broken by Marlborough's victories 
that it was no longer dangerous, and, moreover, Louis swore 
to acknowledge the Protestant succession and to disown the 
Pretender. 

The period between the signing of the treaty and the 
death of Queen Anne, in 1714, was occupied with the 
question of the succession to the throne. This had been 
already decided by the Act of Settlement ; but the Tories, 



AN OUTLINE OF ENGLISH HISTORY, 1685 TO 1715 li 

and Anne herself, hated the idea of a German prince on the 
throne of England, and would have been glad to call the 
Pretender back on certain conditions. The chief of these 
was that he would become a Protestant ; but this he flatly 
refused to do. His refusal left the Tories in an awkward 
position, and they ruined their cause by quarrelling among 
themselves. Polingbroke, the most impetuoiis of them, 
drove his slower colleague, Harley, now Earl of Oxford, 
from power, and was, apparently, making ready to proclaim 
the Pretender. But his plans were not matured when the 
queen suddenly died, and the Whigs, who were united and 
knew exactly what they wanted, seized the power and pro- 
claimed George king. The Tory party collapsed at once ; 
and shortly after the arrival of George, Bolingbroke fled to 
France, where he entered into the service of the Pretender. 
An attempt in the following year, 1715, to raise Scotland 
for the Stuarts broke down completely, and from that day 
the House of Hanover has sat firmly upon the English 
throne. The Whigs, who had placed them there, proved the 
steady guardians of constitutional monarchy, and for nearly 
fifty years the Tories were kept out of power. The quarrel 
between two sections of the Whig party, led respectively by 
Sunderland and Towushend, which Macaulay mentions in 
the EsfKOj on Addison, was of little importance ; and the 
struggle over the Peerage Bill, which w^as meant to secure 
the Whig majority in the House of Lords against all con- 
tingencies, would have been forgotten long ago, but for the 
unfortunate fact that it set Addison and Steele at odds. 
With the failure of the Scottish uprising, in 1715, the long 
struggle between absolute and constitutional monarchy came 
to an end, and a new period, that of the supremacy of the 
gentry, began in the history of England. 



lii INTRODUCTION 



A List of the Whig and Toky Politiciaxs Mex- 

TIOXED IX THE Es.SAY OX AdDISOX 

Whigs 

Montague. Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, made his mark in 
the reign of Charles II. as the leader of the ''Trimmers," a party 
which attempted to hold a middle course between the radical Wliigs 
and the royalist Tories. He was a trusted minister of William III. 
and a member of the Whig "Junto," under Queen Anne. 

Somers. John, Baron Somers, first distinguished himself by his 
able defence of the seven Bishops (see note on Essay on Addison, 
1. 164.) He became the most trusted adviser of William III., who 
made him Lord Chancellor, and he was a leader of the Whigs till their 
fall in 1710. 

Shrewsbury. Charles Talbot, twelfth Earl of Shrewsbury, may 
best be ranked as a Whig, though at one time he was engaged in trea- 
sonable correspondence with the exiled James. He took a leading 
part in placing William on the English throne, and his return to office ^ 
in 1714 did much to secure the peaceable accession of George I. 

Manchester. Charles Montagu, the fourth Earl of Manchester. He 
headed a rising in the North in support of William's invasion. In 
William's reign and that of Anne he was frequently employed as an 
ambassador. 

Sunderland. Charles, Earl of Sunderland, Marlborough's son-in- 
law, a member of the Whig "Junto" in Queen Anne's reign and 
Prime Minister under George I. 

Cowper. A great Whig lawyer, Lord Chancellor under Queen A nne. 
Macaulay calls him perhaps the best Whig speaker of that reign. 

Wharton. Thomas, Earl of Wharton, a leading Whig politician 
under William III. and Anne, talented, versatile, and cynically im- 
moral. He was a patron of Addison, who served under him in 
Ireland and dedicated the fifth volume of the Spectator to him. 

Townshend. Charles, Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State 
under George I. from 1714 to 1717, when he was displaced by the 
intrigues of Sunderland. 

Craggs. James Craggs, Jr., a young Whig politician of great 
talent. He was the warm friend of Pope and of Addison, who dedi- 
cated his collected works to him. 



LIST OF WHIG AND TORY POLITICIANS liii 



Tories 

Somerset. Charles, sixth Duke of Somerset, "the proud Duke," 
may perhaps be ranked as a Tory, although he took up arms to support 
the invasion of William in 1088, and acted with the Whigs in proclaim- 
ing George I. in 1715. lie was a great favorite with Queen Anne. 

Godolphin. Sidney Godolphin entered political life under Charles 
II., who spoke of him as a man never in the way and never out of 
the way. He adhered to James II. till the very last, but became a 
minister of state under William III. His only son married Marl- 
borough's daughter, and he and Marlborough became close allies. 
His fall from office in 1710 opened the way for the High Tory minis- 
try of Harley and Bolingbroke. 

Marlborough. John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, one of 
the greatest of English generals, may also be considered as a Tory, 
though in his long career he deserted every party in turn. He was 
implicitly trusted by James II., who sent him out at the head of his 
army to oppose the invasion of William. Churchill's sudden desertion 
of the King, involving as it did the flight of the Princess Anne from 
her father, was chiefly responsible for the collapse of the Stuart cause 
in England. In spite of the honors and rewards which William heaped 
upon him he soon began a treaclierous correspondence with James, 
going so far as to inform him of the movements of the English army 
against France. On William's death he became, through his own and 
his wife's influence over Queen Anne, the most powerful man in 
England. He was made Captain -General of the army, and on the 
breaking out of the War of the Spanish Succession became Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the allied forces in Flanders. In this war he 
displayed the most amazing military genius, and in the four great 
victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, he 
completely broke the power of France. In reward for his services 
he was created a duke, and the splendid palace of Blenheim, the pres- 
ent seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, was built for him at the public 
expense. After his fall in 1711 he remained abroad till the death of 
Anne. He returned immediately after this and resumed his military 
offices, but took little or no part thereafter in public life. He died in 
1722 at the age of 72. 

Nottingham. Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, was one of the 
leading Tory peers in the reigns of William III. and Anne. He was 
Secretary of State under Godolphin, but retired in 1704 when that 
statesman and Marlborough began to move toward tlie Whigs. 



liv INTRODUCTION 

Jersey. Edvv;ircl Villiers, first Earl of Jersey, Lord Chamberlain 
under Queen Anne. He shared Nottingham's dislike of Marlbor- 
ough's foreign policy and was dismissed from office in 1704. 

Harley. Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, came into promi- 
nence in William's reign as a master of parliamentary politics. 
He was Speaker of the Hou.se of Commons in Anne's first parlia- 
ment, succeeded Nottingham as Secretary of State in 1704, and 
gradually undermined the ministry of Marlborough and Godolphin. 
They forced him out of ofiice, but he continued to influence the queen 
through his cousin, Mrs. Masham, and in 1710 returned to power as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. He brought about the close of the War 
of the Spanish Succession by the Peace of Utrecht. He was driven 
from power by his old ally Bolingbroke in 1714, and never returned 
to office. He was a great patron of letters, and the intimate friend of 
Swift and Pope. 

St. John. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, the most brill- 
iant politician of Queen Anne's reign, first distinguished himself as 
the mouthpiece of Tory attacks on the foreign policy of William III. 
He was introduced into office by Marlborough at the same time as 
Harley. He joined Harley in his intrigue against Marlboi'ough, went 
out of office with him in 1708, and returned to it on the fall of the 
Whigs in 1710. He helped to negotiate the Peace of Utrecht, man- 
aged to oust Harley from the government, and seems to have been 
plotting to secure the return of the Stuarts, when Anne's sudden death 
disconcerted his plans. He fled to France and entered the service of 
the Pretender. He returned in 172:^ and made a vain attempt to re- 
enter public life. He was a dis.solute man and a sceptical philosopher. 
He showed marked literary ability, and was the friend and patron of 
Swift and Pope. 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS Iv 



Examination Questions 

The following, composed iu part of questions actually 
occurring in papers set in the year 1900, may be regarded 
as typical examination questions. Probably not more than 
one or tAVO of such questions will occur in any paper, but 
the student should be prepared to answer any of them. 

I. Macaulay 

1. Give a brief outline of Macaulay 's life. 

2. What are Macaulay's most important works ? What 
are his chief merits as a poet, essayist, and historian ? 

3. Discuss some of the qualities of Macaulay's style. 

4. What was Macaulay's character in private life ? Name 
some of his contemporaries, and tell what they Avere famous 
for in politics and literature. 

II. The Essay on Milton 

1. Under what circumstances was the Essay on Milton 
written? Why does Macaulay make such a vigorous 
defence of Milton ? 

2. What was Macaulay's opinion of the relation existing 
between civilization and poetry ? How does he account for 
this ? 

3. What does Macaulay consider the most striking char- 
acteristic of Milton's poetry ? In which of his poems is 
this characteristic especially displayed ? 

4. Give a brief summary of Macaulay's criticism on 
Comus and Samson Agonistes. 

5. What comparison does Macaulay draw between JNIilton 
and Dante ? . 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

6. Give a brief account of Milton's early life, education, 
and travels. 

7. What principal argument is advanced by Macaulay to 
justify the resistance of the English people to Charles I. ? 

8. AYhat does Macaulay think of the execution of Charles 
I. ? How does he justify Milton's defence of that act ? 

9. What qualities does Macaulay ascribe to the Puritans? 

10. What apparent inconsistencies appear in the charac- 
ter of the Puritans ? 

11. What qualities does Macaulay ascribe to the Royalists ? 

12. Contrast the Puritans and Royalists from the social, 
political, and religious points of view. 

13. What does Macaulay say of the personal character of 
Milton ? 

14. How does Milton differ from the ordinary Puritans ? 

15. What did you think of the Essay on Milton ? What 
parts interested you most ? AVhy '' AVhat are its chief 
merits ? 

III. The Essay ox Addison 

1. Give a brief sketch of the early life and education of 
Addison. 

2. Under what circumstances was the Cam,paig)t written ? 

3. What is Macaulay's estimate of the Campaign ? Of 
Addison's poetry in general ? 

4. Describe the founding of the Taller and of the Specta- 
tor. Why were these periodicals so siiccessful ? 

5. What influence did Addison exert on English morals, 
through the Tatler and the Sj)ectator. 

6. What comparison does Macaulay draw between Addi- 
son's humor and that of Swift and Voltaire ? 

7. Tell all you know about Addison's play, Cato. 

8. What are Addison's chief merits and defects as a 
writer ? 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS Ivii 

9. Describe Addison's relations with Steele, Swift, and 
Pope. 

10. Sketch briefly Addison's political career. 

11. Name the leading })ublic men of both parties in 
Addison's day. 

12. What is Macaulay's estimate of Addison's personal 
character ? 

13. What qualities made Addison a successful man ? 

14. What criticism does Macaulay make of Addison's 
learning ? 

15. Which essay do you prefer, that on Milton, or that 
on Addison '! Give reasons for your preference. 



Ivm INTRODUCTION 



A Brief BiBLUxiRAPiiY 

I. Macaulay 

The standard authority for I\Iacaula.y is the Life and Letters of Lord 
Macaulay, by his nephew George Otto Trevelyan. This is one of the 
best biographies in English, and sliould be read by every one who 
wishes to know the gentler and better side of Macaulay's character. 

The Macaulay by J. Cotter Morison, in the English Men of Letters 
Series, is an interesting critical study. 

There are good essays on Macaulay by Walter Bagehot in his 
Miscellanies, vol. 1 ; John Morley in his Critical Essays, vol. 2 ; Leslie 
Stephen in Hours in a Library (Third Series) ; Frederic Harrison in 
Stridies in Early Victorian Literature; and Professor Saintsbury 
in Corrected Impressions. There is a charming contemporai'y esti- 
mate of Macaulay's character by Thackeray in Nil Nisi Bonum, one 
of the Boundabout Papers. 



II. MiJ/rox 

The great life of Milton is, of course. Professor Masson's encyclo- 
paedic work, the Life of John Milton. This, however, is for reference 
rather than for reading. The Life of Milton in Johnson's Lives of the 
Poets is well worth reading. There is a very good sketch of Milton's 
life and work by Pattison in the English Men of Letters Series, and 
another by Dr. Garnett in the Great Writers Series. 

There are innumerable essays on Milton ; two of these may interest 
the more advanced student — Lowell's in Among Mij Books (Second 
Series) and Arnold's, entitled "A French Critic on Milton," in his 
Mixed Essays. 



III. Addison 

In addition to Miss Aikin's Life of Addison, the Addison of Profes- 
sor Courthope, in the English Men of Letters Series, may be men- 
tioned. There is a very interesting life of Addison included in 
Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY lix 



IV. Miscellaneous 

For students or teachers who wish to read more widely, the follow- 
ing works may be suggested : the Life of Steele by Austin Dobson, in 
the English Worthies Series ; Selections from Steele by Professor Car- 
penter, in the Athenseum Press Series ; Forster's essay on Steele, in 
Biogrnpliical Essays ; Pope and Swift, in the English Men of Letters 
Series, both by Leslie Stephen ; Thackeray's famous novel, Henry 
Esmond, and his lectures on Swift, Congreve and Addison, Steele, 
Prior, Gay, and Pope, in his English Humourists ; Ashton's Social 
Life in the Beign of Queen Anne. 

For the history of the times referred to in these essays the student 
may consult Green's Short History of the English People, Macaulay's 
History of England, Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century, and 
the handbooks in the Epochs of Modern History Series on the Puritan 
Revolution, the Fall <fthe Stuarts, and the Age of Anne. 




JOHN MILTON. 

After the painting by Faed, from the 

print by Faithorne. 



CEITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

CONTRIBUTED TO 

THE EDINBUEGH EEYIEW 



oj»:c 



MILTON. (August, 1825.) 

Jonnnis Miitoni, Ani/U, de Doctrina Christiana libri duo poathumi. 
A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy 
Scriptures alone. By John Milton, translated from the Original 
by Charles R. Sumner, M.A., &c., &c. 1825. 

TowAKDS the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy 
keeper of the state papers, in the course of his researches 
among the presses of his office, met with a large Latin 
manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the 

5 foreign despatches written by Milton, while he filled the 
office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish 
Trials and the Rye-honse Plot. The whole was wrapped 
up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. 
On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long 

10 lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, accord- 
ing to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restora- 
tion, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is 
well known, held the same political opinions with his 
illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon 

15 conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions 
of the government during that persecution of the Whigs 
which followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, 

1 



2 IMILTOIN 

and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, 
this work may have been brought to the office in which it 

20 has been found. But whatever the adventures of the manu- 
script may have been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine 
relic of the great poet. 

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty to 
edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of his 

25 task in a manner honourable to his talents and to his char- 
acter. His version is not indeed very easy or elegant; but 
it is entitled to the praise of clearness and fidelity. His 
notes abound with interesting quotations, and have the 
rare merit of really elucidating the text. The preface is 

30 evidently the work of a sensible and candid man, firin in 
his own religious opinions, and tolerant towards those of 
others. 

The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. 
It is, like all his Latin works, well written, though not 

35 exactly in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and 
Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of classical 
antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the ceremonial 
cleanness which characterises the diction of our academical 
Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and 

40 brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and 
brilliancy. He does not in short sacrifice sense and spirit 
to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject com- 
pelled him to use many words 

"That would liave made Quintiliau stare and sasp." 

45 But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin 
were his mother tongue; and, where he is least happy, his 
failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, not 
from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may apply to him 
what Denham with great felicity says of Cowley. He 

50 wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients. 

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a 



MILTON 3 

powerful and independent mind, emancipcated from the 
influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. 
Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone; 

55 and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly among the 
best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy 
in his inferences as in his citations. 

Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seem 
to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his 

60 Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. Yet 
we can scarcely conceive that any person could have read 
the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former; 
nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with the history 
of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. The 

65 opinions which he has expressed respecting the nature of 
the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of 
the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just 
surprise. 

But Ave will not go into the discussion of these points. 

70 The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical 
than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present 
generation. The men of our time are not to be converted 
or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay 
will follow the Defensio Pojnili to the dust and silence of 

75 the upper shelf. The name of its author, and the remark- 
able circumstances attending its publication, will secure to 
it a certain degree of attention. For a month or two it 
will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, 
and a few columns in every magazine; and it will then, to 

80 borrow the elegant language of the playbills, be withdrawn, 
to make room for the forthcoming novelties. 

We wish however to avail ourselves of the interest, 
transient as it may be, which this work has excited. The 
dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on the life and 

85 miracles of a saint, till they have awakened the devotional 
feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him, a 



4 MILTON 

thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his 
blood. On the same principle, we intend to take advantage 
of the late interesting discovery, and, while this memorial 
90 of a great and good man is still in the hands of all, to say- 
something of his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, 
we are convinced, will the severest of our readers blame us 
if, on an occasion like the present, we turn for a short time 
from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love and 
95 reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, 
the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English litera- 
ture, the champion and the martyr of English liberty. 

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and it is 
of his poetry that Ave wish first to speak. By the general 

100 suffrage of the civilised world, Ids place has been assigned 
among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, 
however, though outvoted, have not been silenced. There 
are many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in 
the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. 

105 The works, they acknowledge, considered in themselves, may 
be classed among the noblest productions of the human 
mind. But they will not allow the author to rank with 
those great men, who, born in the infancy of civilisation, 
supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruction, and, 

110 though destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to pos- 
terity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, 
inherited what his predecessors created; he lived in an 
enlightened age; he received a finished education; and we 
must therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his 

115 powers, make large deductions in consideration of these 
advantages. 

We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the 
remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle 
with more unfavourable circumstances than Milton. He 

120 doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not been 
born " an age too late. " Eor this notion Johnson has thought 



MILTON 5 

fit to make him the butt of much clumsy ridicule. The 
poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better 
than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived 

125 no advantage from the civilisation which surrounded him, 
or from the learning which he had acquired; and he looked 
back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple 
words and vivid impressions. 

We think that, as civilisation advances, poetry almost 

KO necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fervently admire 
those great works of imagination which have appeared in 
dark ages, Ave do not admire them the more because they 
have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that 
the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great 

135 poem produced in a civilised age. We cannot understand 
why those who believe in that most orthodox article of 
literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, 
should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. 
Surely the uniformity of the phgenomenon indicates a cor- 

140 responding uniformity in the cause. 

The fact is, that common observers reason from the 
progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imita- 
tive arts. The improvement of the former is gradual and 
slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in 

145 separating and combining them. Even when a system has 
been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to 
reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard 
bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, 
augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these 

150 pursuits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great dis- 
advantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. 
Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual powers, speedily 
surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who has 
read Mrs. Marpet's little dialogues on Political Economy 

155 could teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in finance. 
Any intelligent man may now, by resolutely applying him- 



6 MILTON 

self for a few years to mathematics, learn more than the 
great Newton knew after half a century of study and 
meditation. 

160 But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with 
sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The progress 
of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better objects 
of imitation. It may indeed improve the instruments which 
are necessary to the mechanical operations of the musician, 

105 the sculptor, and the painter. But language, the machine 
of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. 
Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. 
They advance from particular images to general terms. 
Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philo- 

iTOsophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical. 

This change in the language of men is partly the cause 
and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the nature 
of their intellectual operations, of a change by which science 
gains and poetry loses. Generalisation is necessary to the 

175 advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispen- 
sable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as 
men know more and think more, they look less at individu- 
als and more at classes. They therefore make better theories 
and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of 

180 images, and personified qualities instead of men. They 
may be better able to analyse human nature than their 
predecessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. 
His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may believe in 
a moral sense, like Shaftesbury; he may refer all human 

185 actions to self-interest, like Helvetius; or he may never 
think about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects 
will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than 
the notions which a painter may have conceived respecting 
the lacrymal glands, or the circulation of .the blood, will 

190 affect the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. 
If Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human 



MILTON 7 

actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a 
good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have 
contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is 

195 to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Mandeville 
have created an lago? Well as he knew how to resolve 
characters into their elements, would he have been able to 
combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a 
man, a real, living, individual man? 

200 Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, 
without a certain unsoundness of mind, if any thing which 
gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. 
By poetry we mean not all writing in verse, nor even all 
good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metri- 

205 cal compositions which, on other grounds, deserve tlie high- 
est praise. By poetry we mean the art of employing words 
in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagina- 
tion, the art of doing by means of words what the painter 
does by means of colours. Thus the greatest of poets has 

210 described it, in lines universally admired for the vigour 
and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on 
account of the just notion which they convey of the art in 
which he excelled : 

"As imagination bodies forth 
215 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to sliapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy " which he 
ascribes to the poet, — a fine frenzy doubtless, but still a 

220 frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; but it is the 
truth of madness. The reasonings are just; but the prem- 
ises are false. After the first suppositions have been made, 
every thing ought to be consistent; but those first suppo- 
sitions require a degree of credulity which almost amounts 

225 to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. 
Hence of all people children are the most imaginative. 



8 MILTON 

They abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. 
Every image which is strongly presented to their mental 
eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, what- 

230 ever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or 
Lear, as a little girl is affected by the story of poor Red 
Riding-hood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves 
cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet in 
spite of her knowledge she believes ; she weeps ; she treni- 

235 bles ; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel 
the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despot- 
ism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. 

In a rude state of society men are children with a greater 
variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society 

240 that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its 
highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be 
much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abun- 
dance of just classification and subtle analysis, abundance of 
wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and eTen of good 

245 ones; but little poetry. Men will judge and compare; but 
they will not create. They wdll talk about the old poets, 
and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. 
But they will scai'cely be able to conceive the effect which 
poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the 

250 ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, 
according to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling 
into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping 
knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which the 
ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over their 

255 auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. Such 
feelings are very rare in a civilised community, and most 
rare among those who participate most in its improvements. 
They linger longest among the peasantry. 

Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, as a 

260 magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the body. 
And, as the magic lantern acts best in a dark room, poetry 



MILTON 9 

effects its purpose most completely in a dark age. As the 
light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, as the 
outlines of certainty become more and more definite and the 

265 shades of probability more and more distinct, the hues and 
lineaments of tlie phantoms which the poet calls up grow 
fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible 
advantages of reality and deception, the clear discernment 
of truth and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction. 

270 He who, in an enlightened and literary society, asj^ires to 
be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must 
take to pieces the whole web of his mind. -He must unlearn 
much of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted 
hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will 

275 be a hindrance to him. His difficulties will be proportioned 
to his proficiency in tlie pursuits which are fashionable 
among his contemporaries ; and that proficiency will in 
general be proportioned to the vigour and activity of his 
mind. And it is well if, after all his sacrifices and exer- 

280tions, his works do not resemble a lisping man or a modern 
ruin. We have seen in our own time great talents, intense 
labour, and long meditation, employed in this struggle 
against the spirit of the age, and employed, we will not say 
absolutely in vain, but with dubious success and feeble 

285 applause. 

If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever triumphed 
over greater difficulties than Milton. He received at learned 
education : he was a profound and elegant classical scholar : 
he had studied all the mysteries of Rabbinical literature: 

290 he was intimately acquainted with every language of modern 
Europe, from which either pleasure or information was then 
to be derived. He was perhaps the only great poet of later 
times who has been distinguished by the excellence of his 
Latin verse. The genius of Petrarch was scarcely of the 

295 first order; and his poems in the ancient language, though 
much praised by those who have never read them, are 



10 MILTON 

wretched compositions. Cowley, with all his admirable 
wit and ingenuity, had little imagination: nor indeed do 
we think his classical diction comparable to that of Milton. 

300 The authority of Johnson is against us on this point. But 
Johnson had studied the bad writers of the middle ages till 
he had become utterly insensible to the Augustan elegance, 
and was as ill qualified to judge between two Latin styles 
as an habitual drunkard to set up for a wine-taster. 

305 Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a far-fetched, 
costly, sickly imitation of that which elscAvhere may be 
found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. The soils 
on which this rarity flourishes are in general as ill suited 
to the production of vigorous native poetry as the flower- 

310 pots of a hothouse to the growth of oaks. That the author 
of the Paradise Lost should have written the Epistle to 
Manso was truly wonderful. Never before were such 
marked originality and such exquisite mimicry found 
together. Indeed in all the Latin poems of Milton the 

315 artificial manner indispensable to such works is admirably 
preserved, while, at the same time, his genius gives to them 
a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and freedom, which 
distinguishes them from all other writings of the same 
class. They reinind us of the amusements of those angelic 

320 warriors who composed the cohort of Gabriel : 

" About him exercised lieroic games 
Tlie unarmed youtli of lieaven. But o'er their lieads 
Celestial armoury, shield, helm, and spear. 
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold." 

325 We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which the 
genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a glimpse 
of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is accustomed 
to wear. The strength of his imagination triumphed over 
every obstacle. So intense and ardent was the fire of his 

330 mind, that it not only was not suffocated beneath the weight 



MILTON 11 

of fuel, but penetrated the whole superincumbent mass with 
its own heat and radiance. 

It is not our intention to attempt any thing like a com- 
plete examination of the poetry of Milton. The public has 

335 long been agreed as to the merit of the most remarkable 
passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers, and 
the excellence of that style, which no rival has been able to 
equal, and no parodist to degrade, which displays in their 
highest perfection the idiomatic powers of the English 

340 tongue, and to which every ancient and every modern 
language has contributed something of grace, of energy, or 
of music. In the vast field of criticism on which we are 
entering, innumerable reapers have already put their sickles. 
Yet the harvest is so abundant that the negligent search of 

345 a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. 

The most striking characteristic of tlie poetry of Milton 
is the extreme remoteness of the associations by means of 
which it acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so 
much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests; not so 

350 much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other 
ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the 
mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man 
must understand the Iliad. Homer gives him no choice, 
and requires from him no exertion, but takes the whole upon 

355 himself, and sets the images in so clear a light, that it is 
impossible to be blind to them. The works of Milton 
cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the 
reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not 
paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. 

3()0 He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He 
strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out 
the melody. 

We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The 
expression in general means nothing: but, applied to the 

365 writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry acts 



12 MILTON 

like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious 
meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at 
first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. 
But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they 

370 pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. 
New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all 
the burial-places of the memory give up their dead. 
Change the structure of the sentence ; substitute one syno- 
nyme for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The 

375 spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to con- 
jure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim 
in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, "Open Wheat," 
"Open Barley," to the door which obeyed no sound but 
"Open Sesame." The miserable failure of Dryden in his 

380 attempt to translate into his own diction some parts of the 
Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance of this. 

In support of these observations we may remark, that 
scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are more gen- 
erally known or more frequently repeated than those which 

385 are little more than muster-rolls of names. They are not 
always more appropriate or more melodious than other 
names. But they are charmed names. Every one of them 
is the first link in a long chain of associated ideas. Like 
the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in manhood, like 

390 the song of our country heard in a strange land, they pro- 
duce upon us an effect wholly independent of their intrinsic 
value. One transports ns back to a remote period of his- 
tory. Another places us among the novel scenes and man- 
ners of a distant region. A third evokes all tlie dear classical 

395 recollections of childhood, the school-room, the dog-eared 
Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings before 
us the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied 
lists, the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the 
haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the achievements 

400 of enamoured knights, and the smiles of rescued princesses. 



MILTON 13 

In none of the Avorks of Milton is his peculiar manner 
more happily displayed than in the Allegro and the Pen- 
seroso. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism of 
language can be brought to a more exquisite degree of per- 

405fection. These poems differ from others, as attar of roses 
differs from ordinary rose water, the close packed essence 
from tlie thin diluted mixture. They are indeed not so 
much poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the 
reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is 

410 a text for a stanza. 

The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are works which, 
though of very different merit, offer some marked points of 
resemblance. Both are lyric poems in the form of plays. 
There are perhaps no two kinds of composition so essen- 

4ir)tially dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The business 
of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let 
nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts 
notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken. The 
effect is as unpleasant as that which is ])roduced on the 

420 stage by the voice of a prompter or the entrance of a scene- 
shifter. Hence it was, that the tragedies of Byron were 
his least successful performances. They resemble those 
pasteboard pictures invented by the friend of children, Mr, 
Newbery, in which a single movable head goes round 

425 twenty different bodies, so that the same face looks out 
ui)on us successively, from the uniform of a hussar, the 
furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all the char- 
acters, patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown 
and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant. But 

4:wthis species of egotism, though fatal to the drama, is 
the inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric 
poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his own 
emotions. 

Between these hostile elements many great men have 

435 endeavoured to effect an amalgamation, but never with 



14 MILTON 

complete success. The Greek Drama, on the model of 
which the Samson was written, sprang from the Ode. The 
dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and naturally par- 
took of its character. The genius of the greatest of the 

440 Athenian dramatists co-operated with the circumstances 
under which tragedy made its first appearance. ^-Eschylus 
was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time, the Greeks 
had far more intercourse with the East than in the days of 
Homer; and they had not yet acquired that immense supe- 

445 riority in war, in science, and in tlie arts, which, in the 
following generation, led them to treat the Asiatics with 
contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus it should seem 
that they still looked up, with the veneration of disciples, 
to Egypt and Assyria. At this period, accordingly, it was 

450 natural that the literature of Greece should be tinctured 
with the Oriental style. And that style, we think, is dis- 
cernible in the works of Pindar and J^schylus. The latter 
often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The book of Job, 
indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a considerable resem- 

455blance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, his 
works are absurd; considered as choruses, they are above 
all praise. If, for instance, we examine the address of 
Clyttemnestra to Agamemnon on his return, or the descrip- 
tion of the seven Argive chiefs, by the principles of 

4()0 dramatic writing, we shall instantly condemn them as 
monstrous. But if we forget the characters, and think only 
of the poetry, we shall admit that it has never been sur- 
passed in energy and magnificence. Sophocles made the 
Greek drama as dramatic as was consistent with its original 

465 form. His portraits of men have a sort of similarity; but 
it is the similarity not of a painting, but of a bas-relief. 
It suggests a resemblance; but it does not produce an illu- 
sion. Euripides attempted to carry the reform further. 
But it was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond 

470 any powers. Instead of correcting what was bad, lie 



MILTON 15 

destroyed what was excellent. He substituted crutches for 
stilts, bad sermons for good odes. 

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly, 
much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides deserved. 

475 Indeed the caresses which this partiality leads our country- 
men to bestow on "sad Electra's poet," sometimes remind 
us of the beautiful Queen of Fairy-land kissing the long 
ears of Bottom. At all events, there can be no doubt that 
this veneration for the Athenian, whether just or not, was 

480 injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had Milton taken 
^schylus for his model, he would have given himself up 
to the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the 
treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on 
those dramatic proprieties which the nature of the work 

485 rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt to 
reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent he has 
failed, as every one else must have failed. We cannot 
identify ourselves with the characters, as in a good play. 
We cannot identify ourselves with the poet, as in a good 

4'.ioode. The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali 
mixed, neutralise each other. We are by no means insen- 
sible to the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe 
dignity of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of 
the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which 

495 gives so striking an effect to the choral passages. But Ave 
think it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius 
of Milton. 

The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian Masque, 
as the Samson is framed on the model of the Greek Tragedy. 

50() It is certainly the noblest performance of the kind which 
exists in any language. It is as far superior to the Faith- 
ful Shepherdess, as the Faithful Shepherdess is to the 
Aminta, or the Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for 
Milton that he had here no Euripides to mislead him. He 

505 understood and loved the literature of modern Italy. But 



1(1 MILTON 

he did not feel for i-t the same veneration wliich he enter- 
tained for the remains of Athenian and lioman poetry, con- 
secrated by so many lofty and endearing recollections. The 
faults, moreover, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind 

510 to which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop 
to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style ; but false 
brilliancy was his utter aversion. His ^Nluse had no objec- 
tion to a russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the 
finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a 

515 chimney-sweeper on May-Day. Whatever ornaments she 
wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, 
but capable of standing the severest test of the crucible. 

Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction which 
he afterwards neglected in the Samson. He made his 

520 Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and dra- 
matic only in semblance. He has not attempted a fruitless 
struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of that 
species of composition; and he has therefore succeeded, 
wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must 

o'^obe read as majestic soliloquies; and he who so reads them 
will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, 
and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, how- 
ever, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the 
illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which 

530 are lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I should much 
commend," says the excellent Sir Henry AVotton in a letter 
to Milton, "the tragical part if the lyrical did not ravish 
me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, 
whereunto, I must plainly confess to you, I have seen yet 

535 nothing parallel in our language." The criticism was just. 
It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, 
when he is discharged from the labour of uniting two 
incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge his 
choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above 

540 himself. Then, like his own good Genius bursting from 



MILTON 17 

the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in 
celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry exultingly, 

"Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly or I can run," 

545 to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the 

Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells 

of nard and cassia, which the musky wings of the zephyr 

scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides. 

There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which 

550 we would willingly make a few remarks. Still more will- 
ingly would we enter into a detailed examination of that 
admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, strangely 
enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except as an instance of 
the blindness of the parental affection which men of letters 

555 bear towards the offspring of their intellects. That Milton 
was mistaken in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to 
the Paradise Lost, we readily admit. But we are sure that 
the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Paradise Regained 
is not more decided, than the superiority of the Paradise 

560 Regained to every poem which has since made its appear- 
ance. Our limits, however, prevent us from discussing the 
point at length. We hasten on to that extraordinary pro- 
duction which the general suffrage of critics has placed in 
the highest class of human compositions. 

565 The only poem of modern times which can be compared 
with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The subject 
of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante ; but he 
has treated*t in a widely different manner. We cannot, we 
think, bettei- illustrate our opinion respecting our own great 

570 poet, than by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan 
literature. 

The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the 
hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of 
Mexico. The images which Dante employs, speak for them- 



18 MILTON 

575 selves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of 
Milton have a signification which is often discernible only 
to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they 
directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. 
However strange, however grotesque, may be the appear- 

580 ance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks 
from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the 
sound, the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; he 
measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of a 
traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of 

585 Milton, they are introduced in a j)lain, business-like manner ; 
not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which 
they are drawn ; not for the sake of any ornament which 
they may impart to the poem ; but simply in order to make 
the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to 

5!)0 him self. The ruins of the precipice which led from the ' 
sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock 
which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The 
cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the 
monastery of St. Benedict. The place where the heretics 

595 were confined in burning tombs resembled the vast cemetery 
of Aries. 

Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante the 
dim intimations of Milton.^ We will cite a few examples. 
The English poet has never thought of taking the measure 

600 of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. 
In one passage the fiend lies stretched out huge in length, 
floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies 
of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the mariner mistakes 
for an island. When he addresses himself to battle against 

605 the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas; his 
stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions 
the lines in which Dante has described the gigantic spectre 
of Nimrod. " His face seemed to me as long and as broad 
as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome ; and his other limbs were 



MILTON 19 

BIO in proportion ; so that the bank, which concealed him from 
the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so much of him, 
that three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to 
reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to 
the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Gary's 

(515 translation is not at hand; and our version, however rude, 
is sufficient to illustrate our meaning. 

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book 
of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in 
Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome .details, and takes 

020 refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery, 
Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches 
Avith his attendance. Death shaking his dart over them, but, 
in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says 
Dante ? " There was such a moan there as there would 

025 be if all the sick who, between July and September, are in 

the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, 

and of Sardinia, were in one pit together ; and such a stench 

was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs." 

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of 

630 settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his 
own department is incomparable ; and each, we may remark, 
has wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject adapted to ex- 
hibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. The 
Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is the eye- 

f)35 Avitness and ear-witness of that which he relates. He is the 
very man who has heard the tormented spirits crying out 
for the second death, who has read the dusky characters on 
the portal Avithin Avhich there is no hope, Avho has hidden 
his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, A\dio has fled from 

(340 the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Draghi- 
gnazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of 
Lucifer. His own feet have climbed the mountain of expia- 
tion. His own broAV has been marked by the purifying 
angel. The reader Avould throw aside such a tale in incred- 



20 MILTON 

645 iiloiis disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of 
veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the great- 
est precision and multiplicity in its details. The narrative 
of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante, as the 
adventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The 

650 author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if 
he had introduced those minute particulars which give such 
a charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the 
affected delicacy about names, the official documents tran- 
scribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and 

655 scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending 
to nothing. We are not shocked at being told that a man 
who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very strange 
sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion 
of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, resi- 

660 dent at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and giants, flying 
islands, and philosophising horses, nothing but such circum- 
stantial touches could produce for a single moment a decep- 
tion on the imagination. 

Of all the poets who have introduced into their works 

(j65the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeeded 
best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him : and as this is 
a point on which many rash and ill-considered judgments 
have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it a 
little longer. The most fatal error which a poet can pos- 

670 sibly commit in the management of his machinery, is that 
of attempting to philosophise too much. Milton has been 
often censured for ascribing to spirits many functions of 
which spirits must be incapable. But these objections, 
though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we venture 

675 to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry. 

What is spirit ? What are our- own minds, the portion 
of spirit with which we are best acquainted ? We observe 
certain phsenomena. We cannot explain them into material 
causes. We therefore infer that there exists something 



MILTON 21 

(i80 which is not material. But of this something we have no 
idea. AVe can define it only by negatives. "We can reason 
about it only by symbols. We use the word ; but we have 
no image of the thing ; and the business of poetry is with 
images, and not with words. The poet uses words indeed ; 

685 but they are merely the instruments of his art, not its 
objects. They are the materials which he is to dispose in 
such a manner as to present a picture to the mental eye. 
And if they are not so disposed, they are no more entitled 
to be called poetry than a bale of canvas and a box of 

090 colours to be called a painting. 

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great 
mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of 
the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be 
explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of 

695 Greece, there is reason to believe, worshipped one invisible 
Deity. But the necessity of having something more definite 
to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowd 
of Gods and Goddesses. In like manner the ancient Per- 
sians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a 

700 human form. Yet even these transferred to the Sun the 
worship which, in speculation, they considered due only to 
the Supreme Mind. The history of the Jews is the record 
of a continued struggle between pure Theism, supported by 
the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating 

705 desire of having some visible and tangible object of adora- 
tion. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon 
has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread 
over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a 
proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, 

710 the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted 
few worshippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a 
conception : but the crowd turned away in disgust from 
words which presented no image to their minds. It was 
before Deity embodied in a human form, walking among 



22 MILTON 

715 men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, 
weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleed- 
ing on the cross, that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and 
the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the Portico, 
and the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty 

720 legions, were humbled in the dust. Soon after Christianity 
had achieved its triumph, the principle which had assisted 
it began to corrupt it. It became a new Paganism. Patron 
saints assumed the offices of household gods. St. George 
took the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for 

725 the loss of Castor and Pollux. The A^irgin Mother and 
Cecilia succeeded to A^enus and the Muses. The fascina- 
tion of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of 
celestial dignity ; and the homage of chivalry was blended 
with that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand 

730 against these feelings ; but never with more than apparent 
and partial success. The men who demolished the images 
in cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those 
which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be 
difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. 

7.35 Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be embodied before 
they can excite a strong public feeling. The multitude is 
more easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, or 
the most insignificant name, than for the most important 
principle. 

740 From these considerations, we infer that no poet, who 
should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of 
which Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful 
failure. Still, however, there was another extreme which, 
though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. The 

745 imaginations of men are in a great measure under the con- 
trol of their opinions. The most exquisite art of poetical 
coloiu'ing can produce no illusion, when it is employed to 
represent that which is at once perceived to be incongru- 
ous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers 



MILTON 23 

750 and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, for him to 
abstain from giving snch a shock to their understandings 
as might break the charm which it was his object to throw 
over tlieir imaginations. This is the real explanation of 
the indistinctness and inconsistency with which he has 

755 often been reproached. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it 
was absolutely necessary that the spirits should be clothed 
with material forms. "But," says he, "the poet should 
have secured the consistency of his system by keeping 
immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop 

760 it from his thoughts." This is easily said; but what if 
Milton could not seduce his readers to drop immateriality 
from their thoughts ? What if the contrary opinion had 
taken so full a possession of the minds of men as to leave 
no room even for the half belief which poetry requires ? 

765 Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossible 
for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the imma- 
terial system. He therefore took his stand on the debata- 
ble ground. He left the whole in ambiguity. He has 
doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the charge of 

770 inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the wrong, 
we cannot but believe that he was poetically in the right. 
This task, which almost any other writer would have found 
impracticable, Avas easy to him. The peculiar art which 
he possessed of communicating his meaning circuitously 

775 through a long succession of associated ideas, and of inti- 
mating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise 
those incongruities which he could not avoid. 

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought 
to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton 

780 is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed beyond any 
that ever was written. Its effect approaches to that pro- 
duced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque to 
the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault on the right 
side, a fault inseparable from the plan of Dante's poem, 



24 MILTUN 

785 which, as we have already observed, rendered the utmost 
accuracy of description necessary. Still it is a fault. The 
supernatural agents excite an interest ; but it is not the 
interest which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel 
that we could talk to the ghosts and dteuions, without any 

790 emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask 
them to supper, and eat heartily in their company. Dante's 
angels are good men with wings. His devils are spiteful 
ugly executioners. His dead men are merely living men 
in strange situations. The scene which passes between the 

795 poet and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in 
the burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have 
been at an auto da fc. Nothing can be more touching than 
the first interview of Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it, 
but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet austere composure, 

800 the lover for whose affection she is grateful, but whose vices 
she reprobates ? The feelings which give the passage its 
charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the 
summit of the Mount of Purgatory. 

The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other 

805 writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. 
They are not metaphysical abstractions. They are not 
wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They have no 
horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso and Klop- 
stock. They have just enough in common with human 

810 nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters 
are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance 
to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, 
and veiled in mysterious gloom. 

Perhaps the gods and daemons of .Eschylus may best 

815 bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. 
The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, some- 
thing of the Oriental character; and the same peculiarity 
may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of the 
amenity and elegance which we generally find in the super- 



MILTON 25 

«i>ostitions of Greece. All is rugged, l)arbaric, and colossal. 
The legends of iEscliylus seem to harmonise less with the 
fragrant groves and graceful porticoes in which his country- 
men paid their vows to the God of Light and Goddess of 
Desire, than with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of 

823 eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, 
or in which Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed 
idols. His favourite gods are those of the elder generation, 
the sons of heaven and earth, compared with whom Jupiter 
himself Avas a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, 

830 and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations 
of this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, 
the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of 
heaven. Prometheus bears undoubtedly a considerable 
resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both we find the 

835 same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same 
unconquerable pride. In both characters also are mingled, 
though in very different proportions, some kind and gener- 
ous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman 
enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy 

840 posture: he is rather too much depressed and agitated. 
His resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which 
he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer in his 
hands, and that the hour of his release will surely come. 
l>ut Satan 'is a creature of another sphere. The might of 

845 his intellectual nature is victorious over the extremity of 
pain. Amidst agonies which cannot be conceived without 
horror, he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against 
the sword of ]\Iichael, against the thunder of Jehovah, 
against the flaming lake, and the marl burning with solid 

850 fire, against the prospect of an eternity of unintermitted 
misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own 
innate energies, requiring no support from any thing exter- 
nal, nor even from hope itself. 

To return for a moment to the parallel which we have 



26 MILTON 

855 been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, we 
would add that tlie poetry of these great men has in a con- 
siderable degree taken its character from their moral quali- 
ties. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their 
idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have nothing in 

8G0 common with those modern beggars for fame, who extort 
a pittance from the compassion of the inexperienced by 
exposing the nakedness and sores of their minds. Yet it 
would be difficult to name two Avriters whose works have 
been more completely, though undesignedly, coloured by 

865 their personal feelings. 

The character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished by 
loftiness of spirit; that of Dante by intensity of feeling. 
In every line of the Divine Comedy we discern the asperity 
which is produced by pride struggling with misery. There 

870 is perhaps no work in the world so deeply and uniformly 
sorrowful. The melancholy of Dante was no fantastic 
caprice. It was not, as far as at this distance of time can 
be judged, the effect of external circumstances. It was 
from within. Neither love nor glory, neither the conflicts 

875 of earth nor the hope of heaven could dispel it. It turned 
every consolation and every pleasure into its own nature. 
It resembled that noxious Sardinian soil of Avhich the 
intense bitterness is said to have been perceptible even in 
its honey. His mind was, in the noble language of the 

880 Hebrew poet, " a land of darkness, as darkness itself, and 
where the light was as darkness." The gloom of his char- 
acter discolours all the passions of men, and all the face of 
nature, and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of 
Paradise and the glories of the eternal throne. All the 

H85 portraits of him are singularly characteristic. No person 
can look on the features, noble even to ruggedness, the dark 
furrows of the cheek, the haggard and woful stare of the eye, 
the sullen and contemptuous curve of the lip, and doubt that 
they belong to a man too proud and too sensitive to be happy. 



MILTON 27 

890 Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover ; and, 
like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and in 
love. He had survived his health and his sight, the com- 
forts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. Of the 
great men by whom he had been distinguished at his en- 

895 trance into life, some had been taken away from the evil 
to come ; some had carried into foreign climates their imcon- 
querable hatred of oppression ; some were pining in dun- 
geons ; and some had poured forth their blood on scaffolds. 
Venal and licentious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to 

900 clothe the thoughts of a pandar in the style of a bellman, 
were now the favourite writers of the Sovereign and of the 
public. It was a loathsome herd, which could be compared 
to nothing so fitly as to the rabble of Comus, grotesque 
monsters, half bestial, half human, dropping with wine, 

905 bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obscene dances. 
Amidst these that fair Muse was placed, like the chaste 
lady of the Masque, lofty, spotless, and serene, to be 
chattered at, and pointed at, and grinned at, by the whole 
rout of Satyrs and Goblins. If ever despondency and 

910 asperity could be excused in any man. they might have 
been excused in Milton. But the strength of his mind 
overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, 
nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political 
disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, 

915 had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. 
His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were 
singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stern ; 
but it was a temper which no sufferings could render sullen 
or fretful. Such as it was when, on the eve of great events, 

920 he returned from his travels, in the prime of health and 
manly beauty, loaded with literary distinctions, and glowing 
with patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, after having 
experienced every calamity which is incident to our nature, 
old, poor, sightless aud disgraced, he retired to his hovel to die. 



28 MILTUN 

!t25 Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise Lost at 
a time of life when images of beauty and tenderness are in 
general beginning to fade, even from those minds in which 
they have not been effaced by anxiety and disappointment, 
he adorned it with all that is most lovely and delightful in 

930 the physical and in the moral world. Neither Theocritus 
nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the 
pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate 
amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightingales, the 
juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fount^iins. 

935 His conception of love unites all the voluptuousness of the 
Oriental haram, and all the gallantry of the chivalric tourna- 
ment, with all the pure and quiet affection of an English 
fireside. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine 
scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy-land, are em- 

OlO bosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The 
roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the 
avalanche. 

Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton may 
be found in all his works ; but it is most strongly displayed 

9i5 in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems have been under- 
valued by critics who have not understood their nature. 
They have no epigrammatic point. There is none of the 
ingenuity of Filicaja in the thought, none of the hard and 
brilliant enamel of Petrarch in the style. They are simple 

950 but majestic records of the feelings of the poet; as little 
tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been. 
A victory, an expected attack upon the city, a momentary 
fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out against one 
of his books, a dream which for a short time restored to him 

955 that beautiful face over which the grave had closed for ever, 
led him to musings which, without effort, shaped themselves 
into verse. The unity of sentiment and severity of style 
which characterise these little pieces remind us of the Greek 
Anthology, or perhaps still more of the Collects of the Eng- 



MILTON 29 

oeolish Liturgy. The uoble poem ou the Massacres of Pied- 
mont is strictly a collect in verse. 

The sonnets are more or less striking, according as the 
occasions which gave birth to them are more or less interest- 
ing. But they are, almost without exception, dignified by 

'Mo a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not 
where to look for a parallel. It would, indeed, be scarcely 
safe to draw any decided inferences as to the character of a 
writer from passages directly egotistical. But the qualities 
which we have ascribed to Milton, though perhaps most 

970 strongly marked in those parts of his works which treat of 
his personal feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and 
impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, English, Latin, 
and Italian, a strong family likeness. 

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from 

<)75 a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so powerful. 
He lived at one of the most memorable eras in the history 
of mankind, at the very crisis of the great conflict between 
Oromasdes and Arimanes, liberty and despotism, reason and 
prejudice. That great battle was fought for no single gener- 

<)8oation, for no single land. The destinies of the human race 
were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the Eng- 
lish people. Then were first proclaimed those mighty prin- 
ciples which have since worked their way into the depths 
of the American forests, which have roused Greece from the 

985 slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and which, 
from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled an un- 
quenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed 
the knees of the oppressors Avith an unwonted feai'. 

Of those principles, then struggling for their infant exist- 

990ence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent literary 
champion. "We need not say how much we admire his pub- 
lic conduct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves that a 
large portion of his countrymen still think it unjustifiable. 
The civil war, indeed, has been more discussed, and is less 



30 MILTON 

995 understood, than any event in English history. The friends 
of liberty laboured under the disadvantage of which the lion 
in the fable complained so bitterly. Though they Avere the 
conquerors, their enemies were the painters. As a body, 
the Roundheads had done their utmost to decry and ruin 

1000 literature ; and literature was even with them, as, in the 
long run, it always is with its enemies. The best book on 
their side of the question is the charming narrative of Mrs. 
Hutchinson. May's History of the Parliament is good; but 
it breaks off at the most interesting crisis of the struggle. 

1005 The performance of Ludlow is foolish and violent; and 
most of the later writers who have espoused the same cause, 
Oldmixon for instance, and Catherine Macaulay, have, to 
say the least, been more distinguished by zeal than either 
by candour or by skill. On the other side are the most 

1010 authoritative and the most popular historical works in our 
language, that of Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former 
is not only ably written and full of valuable information, 
but has also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes 
even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds re- 

1015 spectable. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the 
great mass of the reading public are still contented to take 
their opinions, hated religion so much that he hated liberty 
for having been allied with religion, and has pleaded the 
cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate while 

1020 affecting the impartiality of a judge. 

The public conduct of Milton must be approved or con- 
demned according as the resistance of the people to Charles 
the First shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. AVe shall 
therefore make no apology for dedicating a few pages to 

1025 the discussion of that interesting and most important ques- 
tion. We shall not argue it on general grounds. "We shall 
not recur to those primary principles from which the claim 
of any government to the obedience of its subjects is to be 
deduced. We are entitled to that vantage ground ; but we 



MILTON 31 

I03()will relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident of 
superiority, that we are not unwilling to imitate the osten- 
tatious generosity of those ancient knights, who vowed to 
joust without helmet or shield against all enemies, and 
to give their antagonists the advantage of sun and wind. 

1035 We will take the naked constitutional question. We 
confidently affirm, that every reason which can be urged 
in favour of the Revolution of 1688 may be urged with 
at least equal force in favour of what is called the Great 
Rebellion. 

1040 In one respect, only, we think, can the warmest admirers 
of Charles venture to say that he was a better sovereign than 
his son. He was not, in name and profession, a Papist; we 
say in name and profession, because both Charles himself 
and his creature Laud, while they abjured the innocent 

1045 badges of Popery, retained all its worst vices, a complete 
subjection of reason to authority, a weak preference of form 
to substance, a childish passion for mummeries, an idolatrous 
veneration for the priestly character, and, above all, a merci- 
less intolerance. This, however, we waive. We will con- 

1050 cede that Charles was a good Protestant ; but we say that 
his Protestantism does not make the slightest distinction 
between his case and that of James. 

The principles of the Revolution have often been grossly 
misrepresented, and never more than in the course of the 

1055 present year. There is a certain class of men, who, while they 
profess to hold in reverence the great names and great actions 
of former times, never look at them for any other purpose 
than in order to find in them some excuse for existing 
abuses. In every venerable precedent they pass by what is 

10()0 essential, and take only what is accidental : they keep out 
of sight what is beneficial, and hold up to public imitation 
all that is defective. If, in any part of any great example, 
there be any thing unsound, these flesh-flies detect it with 
an unerring instinct, and dart upon it with a ravenous 



32 MTLTON 

km;-) delight. If some good end has been attained in spite of 
them, they feel, with their prototype, that 

" Their labour must be to pervert that end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil." 

To the blessings which England has derived from the 

1070 Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The expul- 
sion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular rights, 
liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with them. 
One sect there was, which, from unfortunate temporary 
causes, it was thought necessary to keep under close 

107.") restraint. One part of the empire there was so unhappily 
circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary 
to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom. These 
are the parts of the Revolution which tlie politicians of 
whom we speak love to contemplate, and which seem to 

1080 them not indeed to vindicate, but in some degree to palliate, 
the good which it has produced. Talk to them of Naples, 
of Spain, or of South America. They stand forth zealots 
for the doctrine of Divine Right which has now come back 
to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of 

1085 Legitimacy. But mention the miseries of Ireland. Then 
William is a hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are great 
men. Then the Revolution is a glorious era. The very 
same persons who, in this country, never omit an oppor- 
tunity of reviving every w^retched Jacobite slander respect- 

lOiX) ing the Whigs of that period, have no sooner crossed St. 
George's Channel, than they begin to fill their bumpers to 
the glorious and immortal memory. They may truly boast 
that they look not at men, but at measures. So that evil 
be done, they care not who does it; the arbitrary Charles, 

1095 or the liberal William, Ferdinand the Catholic, or Frederic 
the Protestant. On such occasions their deadliest oppo- 
nents may reckon upon their candid construction. The 
bold assertions of these people have of late impressed a 



MILT(3N 33 

large portion of the public with an opinion that James the 

1100 Second was expelled simply because he was a Catholic, and 

that the Revolution was essentially a Protestant Eevolution. 

But this certainly was not the case; nor can any person 

who has acquired more knowledge of the history of those 

times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridgment 

1105 believe that, if James had held his own religious opinions 
without wishing to make proselytes, or if, wishing even to 
make proselytes, he had contented himself with exerting 
only his constitutional influence for that purpose, the Prince 
of Orange would ever have been invited over. Our ances- 

1110 tors, we suppose, knew their own meaning; and, if we may 
believe them, their hostility was primarily not to popery, 
but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant because 
he was a Catholic; but they excluded Catholics from the 
crown, because they thought them likely to be tyrants. 

1115 The ground on which they, in their famous resolution, 
declared the throne vacant, Avas this, "that James had 
broken the fundamental laws of the kingdom." Every 
man, therefore, who approves of the Eevolution of 1688 
must hold that the breach of fundamental laws on tlie part 

1120 of the sovereign justifies resistance. The question, then, 
is this ; Had Charles the First broken the fundamental laws 
of England? 

Xo person can answer in the negative, unless he refuses 
credit, not merely to all the accusations brought against 

1125 Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives of the 
warmest Koyalists, and to the confessions of the King him- 
self. If there be any truth in any historian of any party 
who has related the events of that reign, the conduct of 
Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the Long Par- 

iisoliament, had been a continued course of oppression and 
treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolution, and 
condemn the Rebellion, mention one act of James the Second 
to which a parallel is not to be found in the history of his 



34 MILTON 

father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the 

1135 Declaration of Right, presented by the two Honses to Will- 
iam and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have 
violated. He had, according to the testimony of his own 
friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised 
taxes without the consent of parliament, and quartered 

1140 troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious man- 
ner. Not a single session of parliament had passed with- 
out some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate ; 
the right of petition was grossly violated; arbitrary judg- 
ments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, 

1145 were grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do 
not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason ; if they 
do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. 

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? Why, 
after the King had consented to so many reforms, and 

1150 renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the parlia- 
ment continue to rise in their demands at the risk of pro- 
voking a civil war? The ship-money had been given up. 
The Star Chamber had been abolished. Provision had been 
made for the frequent convocation and secure deliberation 

1155 of parliaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good 
by peaceable and regular means? AVe recur again to the 
analogy of the Revolution. Why was James driven from 
the throne? Why was he not retained upon conditions? 
He too had offered to call a free parliament and to submit 

1160 to its decision all the matters in dispute. Yet we are in 
the habit of praising our forefathers, who preferred a revo- 
lution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty 
years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a 
national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and 

1165 proved tyrant. The Long Parliament acted on the same 
principle, and is entitled to the same praise. They could 
not trust the King. He had no doubt passed salutary laws ; 
but what assurance was there that he would not break them? 



MILTON 35 

He had renounced oppressive prerogatives; but where was 

1170 the security tliat he Avouhl not resume them? Tlie nation 
had to deal with a man whom no tie could bind, a man who 
made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose 
honour had been a hundred times pawned, and aiever 
redeemed. 

1175 Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still 
stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No action 
of James can be compared to the conduct of Charles with 
respect to the Petition of Eight. The Lords and Commons 
present him with a bill in which the constitutional limits 

1180 of his power are marked out. He hesitates; he evades; at 
last he bargains to give his assent for five subsidies. The 
bill receives his solemn assent; the subsidies are voted; 
but no sooner is the tyrant relieved, than he returns at once 
to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself 

1185 to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very Act 
which he had been paid to pass. 

For more than ten years the people had seen the rights 
which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial 
inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed by the per- 

1190 fidious king who had recognised them. At length circvim- 
stances compelled Charles to summon another parliament : 
another chance was given to our fathers : were they to throw 
it away as they had thrown away the former? Were they 
again to be cozened by Je Roi le ventf Were they again to 

Ii!t5 advance their money on pledges which had been forfeited 
over and over again? Were they to lay a second Petition 
of night at the foot of the throne, to grant another lavish 
aid in exchange for another unmeaning ceremony, and then 
to take their departure, till, after ten years more of fraud 

1200 and oppression, their prince should again require a supply, 
and again repay it with a perjury? They were compelled 
to choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer 
him. We think that they chose wisely and nobly. 



30 MILTON 

Tlie advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other 

1205 malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is pro- 
duced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and 
content themselves with calling testimony to character. 
He had so many private virtues ! And had James the Sec- 
ond no private virtues ? Was Oliver CroniAvell, his bitterest 

1210 enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private vir- 
tues ? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to 
Charles ? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of 
his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few 
of the ordinary household decencies which half the tomb- 

1215 stones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A 
good father ! A good husband ! Ample apologies indeed 
for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood ! 

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; 
and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! We accuse 

1220 him of having given up his people to the merciless inflic- 
tions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates ; 
and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee 
and kissed him ! We censure him for having violated the 
articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and 

1225 valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we 
are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six 
o'clock in the morning ! It is to such considerations as 
these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, 
and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most 

1230 of his popularity with the present generation. 

For ourselves, Ave own that we do not understand the 
common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We can as 
easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or a 
good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in esti- 

1235 mating the character of an individual, leave out of our con- 
sideration his conduct in the most important of all human 
relations ; and if in that relation we find him to have been 
selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call 



MILTON 37 

him a bad man, in spite of all liis temperance at table, and 

1240 all his regularity at chapel. 

We cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting a 
topic on which the defenders of Charles are fond of dwell- 
ing. If, they say, he governed his people ill, he at least 
governed them after the example of his predecessors. If 

1245 he violated their privileges, it was because those privileges 
had not been accurately defined. No act of oppression has 
ever been imputed to him which has not a parallel in the 
annals of the Tudors. This point Hume has laboured, with 
an art which is as discreditable in a historical work as it 

1250 would be admirable in a forensic address. The answer is 
short, clear, and decisive. Charles had assented to the 
Petition of Right. He had renounced the oppressive powers 
said to have been exercised by his predecessors, and he had 
renounced them for money. He was not entitled to set up 

1255 his antiquated claims against his own recent release. 

These arguments are so obvious, that it may seem super- 
fluous to dwell upon tliem. But those who have observed 
how much the events of that time are misrepresented and 
misunderstood, will not blame us for stating the case 

1260 simply. It is a case of which the simplest statement is 
the strongest. 

The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose to 
take issue on the great points of the question. They con- 
tent themselves with exposing some of the crimes and 

1265 follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. 
They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They exe- 
crate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the 
Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing 
their districts ; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined 

1270 peasantry ; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking 
possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees 
of the old gentry ; boys smashing the beautiful windows of 
cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through the market-place ; 



38 MILTON 

Fifth-monavchy-men shouting for King Jesus; agitators 

1275 lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag; all 

these, they tell us, were the offspring of the Great Rebellion. 

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. 

These charges, were they infinitely more important, would 

not alter our opinion of an event which alone has made us 

1280 to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath despotic 
sceptres. Many evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil 
war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisi- 
tion been worth the sacrifice? It is the nature of the Devil 
of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. Are 

1285 the miseries of continued possession less horrible than the 
struggles of the tremendous exorcism ? 

If it were possible that a people brought up under an 
intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that system 
without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to 

1290 despotic power would be removed. We should, in that 
case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces 
no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character 
of a nation. We deplore the outrages which accompany 
revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more 

1295 assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The vio- 
lence of those outrages will always be proportioned to the 
ferocity and ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and 
ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppres- 
sion and degradation under which they have been accus- 

i.'JOO tomed to live. Thus it was in our civil war. The heads 
of the church and state reaped only that which they had 
sown. The government had prohibited free discussion ; it 
had done its best to keep the people unacquainted with their 
duties and their rights. The retribution was just and 

!?,()') natural. If our rulers suffered from popular ignorance, it 
was because they had themselves taken away the key of 
knowledge. If they were assailed with blind fury, it was 
because they had exacted an equally blind submission. 



MILTON 39 

It is the character of such revolutions that we always see 

1310 the worst of them at first. Till men have been some time 
free, they know not how to use their freedom. The natives 
of wine countries are generally sober. In climates where 
wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. A newly liberated 
people may be compared to a northern army encamped on 

1315 the Ehine or the Xeres. It is said that, when soldiers in 
such a situation first find themselves able to indulge without 
restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to 
be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches 
discretion ; and, after wine has been for a few months their 

1320 daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever 
been in their own country. In the same manner, the final 
and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, 
and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious 
crimes, conflicting errors, scepticism on points the most 

1325 clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just 
at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull 
down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice: they 
point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless 
rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance; 

1330 and then ask in scorn where the promised splendour and 
comfoi't is to be found. If such miserable sophisms were 
to prevail there would never be a good house or a good 
government in the world. 

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some 

1335 mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at 
certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. 
Those who injured her during the period of her disguise 
were for ever excluded from participation in the blessings 
which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her 

i:340 loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards 
revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form Avhich 
was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all 
their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them 



40 MILTON 

happy in love and victorions in Avav. Such a spirit is 

1345 Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. 
She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who 
in disgust shall venture to crush her ! And happy are those 
who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and fright- 
ful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of 

1350 her beauty and her glory ! 

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired 
freedom produces; and that cure is freedom. When a 
prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day : 
he is unable to discriminate colours, or recognise faces. 

1355 But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but 
to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth 
and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which 
have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let 
them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a 

13G0 few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of 
opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The 
scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to 
coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is 
educed out of the chaos. 

1365 - Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it 
down as a self-evident })roposition, that no })eople ought to 
be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim 
is Avorthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to 
go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to 

1370 wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, 
they may indeed wait for ever. 

Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the conduct 
of Milton and the other wise and good men who, in spite 
of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of 

1375 their associates, stood firmly by the cause of Public Liberty. 
We are not aware that the poet has been charged with per- 
sonal participation in any of the blameable excesses of that 
time. The favourite topic of his enemies is tlie line of 



MILTON 41 

coiuluct which he pursued with regard to the execution of 

1380 tlie King. (.)f that celebrated proceeding we by no means 
approve. Still we must say, injustice to the many eminent 
persons who concurred in it, and in justice more particu- 
larly to the eminent person who defended it, that nothing 
can be more absurd than the imputations which, for the 

1385 last hundred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to 
cast upon the Kegicides. We have, throughout, abstained 
from appealing to first principles. We will not appeal to 
them now. We recur again to the parallel case of the 
Revolution. What essential distinction can be drawn 

1300 between the execution of the father and the deposition of 
the son ? What constitutional maxim is there which applies 
to the former and not to the latter ? The King can do no 
wrong. If so, James was as innocent as Charles could have 
been. The minister only ought to be responsible for the 

1395 acts of the Sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jefferies 
and retain James ? The person of a King is sacred. Was 
the person of James considered sacred at the Boyne ? To 
discharge cannon against an army in which a King is 
known to be posted is to approach pretty near to regicide. 

1400 Charles, too, it should always be remembered, was put to 
death by men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of 
several years, and who had never been bound to him by any 
other tie than that which was common to them with all 
their fellow-citizens. Those who drove James from his 

1405 throne, who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, 
who first imprisoned him in his palace, and then turned him 
out of it, who broke in upon his very slumbers by imperious 
messages, who pursued him with lire and sword from one 
part of the empire to another, who hanged, drew, and quar- 

1410 tered his adherents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his 
nephew and his two daughters. When we reflect on all 
these things, we are at a loss to conceive how the same 
persons who, on the fifth of November, thank God for won- 



42 MILTON 

dei'fully conducting his servant William, and for making 

1415 all opposition fall before him until he became our King and 
Governor, can, on the thirtieth of January, contrive to be 
afraid that the blood of the Royal Martyr may be visited 
on themselves and their children. 

We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles; 

1420 not because the constitution exempts the King from respon- 
sibility, for we know that all such maxims, however excel- 
lent, have their exceptions ; not because we feel any peculiar 
interest in his character, for we think that his sentence 
describes him with perfect justice as " a tyrant, a traitor, a 

1425 murderer, and a public enemy;" but because we are con- 
vinced that the measure was most injurious to the cause of 
freedom. He whom it removed was a captive and a hos- 
tage : his heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royalist 
was instantly transferred, was at large. The Presbyterians 

1430 could never have been perfectly reconciled to the father : 
they had no such rooted enmity to the son. The great body 
of the people, also, contemplated that proceeding with feel- 
ings which, however unreasonable, no government could 
safely venture to outrage. 

1435 But thoiigh we think tlie conduct of the Regicides blame- 
able, that of Milton appears to us in a very different light. 
The deed was done. It could not be undone. The evil was 
incurred; and the object was to render it as small as pos- 
sible. We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding 

1440 to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure Milton for 
wishing to change that opinion. The very feeling which 
would have restrained us from committing the act would 
have led us, after it had been committed, to defend it 
against the ravings of servility and superstition. For the 

1445 sake of public liberty, we wish that the thing had not been 
done, while the people disapproved of it. But, for the sake 
of public liberty, we should also have wished the people to 
approve of it when it was done. If any thing more were 



MILTON 43 

wanting to the justification of Milton, the book of Salmasius 

U50 would furnish it. That miserable performance is now with 
justice considered only as a beacon to word-catchers, who 
wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the man who 
refuted it, the "^neae magni dextra," gives it all its fame 
Avith the present generation. In that age the state of things 

1455 was different. It was not then fully understood how vast 
an interval separates the mere classical scholar from the 
political philosopher. Nor can it be doubted that a treatise 
which, bearing the name of so eminent a critic, attacked 
the fundamental principles of all free governments, must, if 

14G0 suffered to remain unanswered, have produced a most per- 
nicious effect on the public mind. 

We wish to add a few words relative to another subject, 
on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, his con- 
duct during the administration of the Protector, That an 

1405 enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a 
military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordi- 
nary. But all the circumstances in which the country was 
then placed were extraordinary. The ambition of Oliver 
was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to have coveted 

1470 despotic power. He at first fought sincerely and manfully 
for the Parliament, and never deserted it, till it had deserted 
its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it was not till he 
found that the few members who remained after so many 
deaths, secessions, and expulsions, were desirous to appro- 

1475 priate to themselves a power which they held only in trust, 
and to inflict upon England the curse of a Venetian oli- 
garchy. But even when thus placed by violence at the head 
of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He gave 
the country a constitution far more perfect than any which 

1480 had at that time been known in the world. He reformed 
the representative system in a manner which has extorted 
praise even from Lord Clarendon. For himself he demanded 
indeed the first place in the commonwealth} but with powers 



44 MILTON 

scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an 

1485 American president. He gave the Parliament a voice in 
the appointment of ministers, and left to it the whole legis- 
lative authority, not even reserving to himself a veto on 
its enactments; and he did not require that the chief magis- 
tracy should be hereditary in his family. Thus far, we 

l4yo think, if the circumstances of the time and the opportuni- 
ties which he had of aggrandising himself be fairly con- 
sidered, he will not lose by comparison with Washington or 
Bolivar. Had his moderation been met by corresponding 
moderation, there is no reason to think that he would have 

1-195 overstepped the line which he had traced for himself. But 
when he found that his parliaments questioned the authority 
under which they met, and that he was in danger of being 
deprived of the restricted power which was absolutely 
necessary to his personal safety, then, it must be aeknowl- 

loOO edged, he adopted a more arbitrary policy. 

Yet, though we believe that the intentions of Cromwell 
were at first honest, though we believe that he was driven 
from the noble course which he had marked out for himself 
by the almost irresistible force of circumstances, though we 

1505 admire, in common witli all men of all parties, the ability 
and energy of his splendid administration, we are not plead- 
ing for arbitrary and lawless power, even in his hands. 
We know that a good constitution is infinitely better than 
the best despot. But we suspect, that at the time of which 

1510 we speak, the violence of religious and political enmities 
rendered a stable and happy settlement next to impossible. 
The choice lay, not between Cromwell and liberty, but 
between Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose 
well, no man can doubt who fairly compares the events of 

1515 the protectorate with those of the thirty years which suc- 
ceeded it, the darkest and most disgraceful in the English 
annals. Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an 
irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable system. 



MILTON 45 

Never before had religious liberty and the freedom of dis- 

1520 cussion been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the 
national honour been better upheld abroad, or the seat of 
justice better filled at home. And it was rarely that any 
opposition which stopped short of open rebellion provoked 
the resentment of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. 

1525 The institutions which he had established, as set down in 
the Instrument of Government, and the Humble Petition 
and Advice, were excellent. His practice, it is true, too 
often departed from the theory of these institutions. But, 
had he lived a few years longer, it is probable that his 

1530 institutions would have survived him, and that his arbitrary 
practice would have died with him. His power had not 
been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It was upheld 
only by his great personal qualities. Little, therefore, was 
to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he were also 

1535 a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed his 
decease are the most complete vindication of those who 
exerted themselves to uphold his authority. His death dis- 
solved the whole frame of society. The army rose against 
the parliament, the different corps of the army against each 

1510 other. Sect raved against sect. Party plotted against 
party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness to be revenged 
on the Independents, sacrificed their own liberty, and 
deserted all their old principles. Without casting one 
glance on the past, or requiring one stipulation for the 

1545 future, they threw down their freedom at the feet of the 
most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. 

Then came those days, never to be recalled without a 
blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality 
without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the 

1550 paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of 
the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King cringed to 
his rival that he might trample on his j^eople, sank into a 
viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy. 



46 MILTON 

her degrading insults, and her more degrading gold. The 

1555 caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons, regulated the 
policy of the state. The government had just ability 
enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. 
The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning 
courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning 

1560 dean. In every high place, worship was paid to Charles 
and James, Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated 
those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and 
bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace 
to disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man was a 

1565 second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the 
earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to 
the nations. 

Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made on the 
public character of Milton, apply to him only as one of a 

1570 large body. We shall proceed to notice some of the pecu- 
liarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries. 
And, for that purpose, it is necessary to take a short survey 
of the parties into which the political world was at that 
time divided. We must premise, that our observations are 

1575 intended to apply only to those who adhered, from a sincere 
preference, to one or to the other side. In days of public 
commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended 
by a crowd of camp-followers, an useless and heartless 
rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of 

1580 picking up something under its protection, but desert it in 
the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a 
defeat. England, at the time of which we are treating, 
abounded with fickle and selfish politicians, who transferred 
their support to every government as it rose, who kissed 

1585 the hand of the King in 1640, and spat in his face in 1649, 
who shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated 
in Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged 
at Tyburn, who dined on calves' heads, or stuck up oak- 



MILTON 47 

branches, as circumstances altered, without the slightest 

isyo shame or repugnance. Tliese we leave out of the account. 
We take our estimate of parties from those who really 
deserve to be called partisans. 

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remark- 
able body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever pro- 

1595 duced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character 
lie on the surface. He that runs may read them ; nor have 
there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to 
point them out. For many years after the Restoration, 
they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. 

ifiOoThey were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press 
and of the stage, at the time when the press and the stage 
were most licentious. They were not men of letters ; they 
were, as a body, unpopular ; they could not defend them- 
selves ; and the public would not take them under its pro- 

1(505 tection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, 
to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The 
ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their 
nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their 
HebrcAv names, the Scriptural phrases which they intro- 

1010 duced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, 
their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair 
game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers 
alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And 
he who approaches this subject should carefully guard 

1015 against the influence of that potent ridicule which has 
already misled so many excellent writers. 

" Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene : 
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, 
1020 Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene. ' ' 

Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed 
their measures through a long series of eventful years, who 
formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest 



48 MTLTON 

army that Europe liad ever seen, who trampled down King, 

i()25 Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of 
domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England 
terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vul- 
gar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external 
badges, like the signs of freemasonry, or the dresses of friars. 

1030 We regret that these badges Avere not more attractive. We 
regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind 
has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance 
which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the 
First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of 

1(535 Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make 
our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from 
the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head 
and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which 
conceals the treasure. 

1040 The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a 
peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior 
beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledg- 
ing, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habit- 
ually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for 

iWu whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection 
nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to en- 
joy him, was with them the great end of existence. They 
rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other 
sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead 

if)50of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an 
obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable 
brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence 
originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The 
difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind 

1655 seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval 
which separated the whole race from him on whom their own 
eyes were constantly fixed. They recognised no title to supe- 
riority but his favour; and, confident of that favour, they 



MILTON 49 

despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the 

1(360 world. If they were unacquainted with the works of phi- 
losophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles 
of God. If their names were not found in the registers of 
heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their 
steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, 

um legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their 
palaces were houses not made with hands ; their diadems 
crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich 
and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down 
with contempt : for they esteemed themselves rich in a more 

11)70 precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, 
nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the 
imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them 
was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible impor- 
tance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light 

i(i7.5and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been 
destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy 
a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth 
should have passed away. Events which short-sighted 
politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on 

1(580 his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flour- 
ished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had pro- 
claimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp 
of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common de- 
liverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been 

l()85 ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of 
no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been 
darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had 
risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her 
expiring God. 

WM Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the 
one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the 
other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated 
himself in the dust before his Maker : but he set his foot 



50 MILTON 

on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he 

1695 prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was 
half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard 
the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He 
caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or Avoke screaming 
from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought 

1700 himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. 
Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that 
God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat 
in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestu- 
ous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind 

1705 them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth 
visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and 
their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had 
little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of 
debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to 

1710 civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an 
immutability of purpose which some writers have thought 
inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact 
the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings 
on onO' subject made them tranquil on every other. One 

1715 overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and 
hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and 
pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, 
their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of 
this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared 

1720 their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and 
raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. 
It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but 
never to choose unwise means. They went through the 
world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crush- 

1725 ing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human 
beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, 
insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be 
pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. 



MILTON 51 

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puri- 

1730 tans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. We 

dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We 

acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured 

by straining after things too high for mortal reach : and we 

know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often 

1735 fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and 

extravagant austerity, that they had their anchorites and 

their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their 

Dominies and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances 

are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pro- 

I740nounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and an useful 

body. 

The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly 
because it was the cause of religion. There was another 
party, by no means numerous, but distinguished by learn- 
1745 ing and ability, which acted with them on very different 
principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was accus- 
tomed to call the Heathens, men who were, in the phrase- 
ology of that time, doubting Thomases or careless Gallios 
with regard to religious subjects, but passionate worship- 
17.50 pers of freedom. Heated by the study of ancient literature, 
they set up their country as their idol, and proposed to 
themselves the heroes of Plutarch as their examples. They 
seem to have borne some resemblance to the Brissotines of 
the French Revolution. P>ut it is not very easy to draw 
1755 the line of distinction between them and their devout asso- 
ciates, whose tone and manner they sometimes found it 
convenient to affect, and sometimes, it is probable, imper- 
ceptibly adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to 
1700 speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, 
with perfect candour. We shall not charge upon a whole 
party the profligacy and baseness of the horseboys, gam- 
blers and bravoes, whom the hope of license and plunder 



52 MILTON 

attracted from all the dens of Whitefriars to the standard 

1765 of Charles, and who disgraced their associates by excesses 
which, nnder the stricter discipline of the Parliamentary 
armies, were never tolerated. We will select a more favour- 
able specimen. Thinking as we do that the cause of the 
King Avas the cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot 

1770 refrain from looking with complacency on the character of 
the honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national pride in com- 
paring them with the instruments which the despots of 
other countries are compelled to employ, with the mutes 
who throng their antechambers, and the Janissaries who 

1775 mount guard at their gates. Our royalist countrymen were 
not heartless, dangling courtiers, bowing at every step, and 
simpering at every word. They were not mere machines 
for destruction dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, 
intoxicated into valour, defending without love, destroying 

1780 without hatred. There was a freedom in their subservi- 
. ency, a nobleness in their very degradation. The senti- 
ment of individual independence was strong within them. 
They were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish motive. 
Compassion and romantic honour, the prejudices of child- 

1785 hood, and the venerable names of history, threw over them 
a spell potent as that of Duessa; and, like the Red-Cross 
Knight, they thought that they were doing battle for an 
injured beauty, while they defended a false and loathsome 
sorceress. In truth they scarcely entered at all into the 

1790 merits of the political question. It was not for a treacher- 
ous king or an intolerant church that they fought, but for 
the old banner whicdi had waved in so many battles over 
the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at which they 
had received the hands of their brides. Though nothing 

1795 could be more erroneous than their political opinions, they 
possessed, in a far greater degree than their adversaries, 
those qualities which are the grace of private life. W^ith 
many of the vices of the Round Table, they had also many 



MILTON 53 

of its virtues, courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness, and 
1800 respect for women. They had far more both of profound 
and of polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners 
were more engaging, their tempers more amiable, their 
tastes more elegant, and their households more cheerful. 
Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes which 
1805 we have described. He was not a Puritan. He was not a 
freethinker. He was not a Eoyalist. In his character the 
noblest qualities of every party were combined in harmoni- 
ous union. From the Parliament and from the Court, from 
the conventicle and from the Gothic cloister, from the 
1810 gloomy and sepulchral circles of the Roundheads, and from 
the Christmas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, his nature 
selected and drew to itself whatever was great and good, 
while it rejected all the base and pernicious ingredients by 
which those finer elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, 

1815 he lived 

"As ever in his great task-master's eye.' 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on an Almighty 
Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he acquired their 
contempt of external circumstances, their fortitude, their 

1820 tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But not the cool- 
est sceptic or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly 
free from the contagion of their frantic delusions, their 
savage manners, their ludicrous jargon, their scorn of sci- 
ence, and their aversion to pleasure. Hating tyranny with 

1825 a perfect hatred, he had nevertheless all the estimable and 
ornamental qualities which were almost entirely monopo- 
lised by the party of the tyrant. There was none who had 
a stronger sense of the value of literature, a finer relish for 
every elegant amusement, or a more chivalrous delicacy of 

1830 honour and love. Though his opinions were democratic, 
his tastes and his associations were such as harmonise best 
with monarchy and aristocracy. He was under the influence 
of all the feelings by which the gallant Cavaliers were mis- 



54 MILTON 

led. But of those feelings he was the master and not the 

1835 slave. Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasures 
of fascination ; but he was not fascinated. He listened to 
the song of the Syrens ; yet he glided by without being 
seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted the cup of Circe; 
but he bore about him a sure antidote against the effects of 

1840 its bewitching sweetness. The illusions which captivated 
his imagination never impaired his reasoning powers. The 
statesman was proof against the splendour, the solemnity, 
and the romance which enchanted the poet. Any person 
who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises 

1815 on Prelacy with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical archi- 
tecture and music in the Penseroso, which was published 
about the same time, will understand our meaning. This 
is an inconsistency which, more than any thing else, raises 
his character in our estimation, because it shows how many 

1850 private tastes and feelings he sacrificed, in order to do what 
he considered his duty to mankind. It is the very struggle 
of the noble Othello. His heart relents ; but his hand is 
firm. He does nought in hate, but all in honour. He 
kisses the beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. 

1855 That from which the public character of Milton derives 
its great and peculiar splendour still remains to be men- 
tioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn 
king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in 
conjunction with others. But the glory of the battle which 

1800 he fought for the species of freedom which is the most 
valuable, and which was then the least understood, the 
freedom of the human mind, is all his own. Thousands 
and tens of thousands among his contemporaries raised 
their voices against Ship-money and the Star-chamber. But 

1805 there were few indeed who discerned the more fearful evils 
of moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits which 
would result from the liberty of the press and the unfet- 
tered exercise of private judgment. These were the objects 



MILTON 55 

which Milton justly conceived to be the most important. 

1870 He was desirous that the people should think for them- 
selves as well as tax themselves, and should be emanci- 
pated from the dominion of prejudice as well as from that 
of Charles. He knew that those who, with the best inten- 
tions, overlooked these schemes of reform, and contented 

1875 themselves with pulling down the King and imprisoning 
the malignants, acted like the heedless brothers in his own 
poem, who, in their eagerness to disperse the train of the 
sorcerer, neglected the means of liberating the captive. 
They thought only of conquering when they should have 

1880 thought of disenchanting. 

" Oh, ye mistook ! Ye should have snatched his wand 
And bound him fast. Witliout the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
1885 Bound in strong fetters fixed antl motionless." 

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to break 
the ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat of en- 
chantment, was the noble aim of Milton. To this all his 
public conduct was directed. For this he joined the Presby- 

iSiK) terians ; for this he forsook them. He fought their perilous 
battle ; but he turned away with disdain from their insolent 
triumph. He saw that they, like those whom they had 
vanquished, were hostile to the liberty of thought. He 
therefore joined the Independents, and called upon Crom- 

1895 well to break the secular chain, and to save free conscience 
from the paw of the Presbyterian wolf. With a view to 
the same great object' he attacked the licensing system, in 
that sublime treatise which every statesman should wear 
as a sign upon his hand and as frontlets between his eyes. 

1900 His attacks were, in general, directed less against particular 
abuses than against those deeply-seated errors on which 
almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship of emi- 
nent men and the irrational dread of innovation. 



56 MILTON 

That he might shake the foundations of these debasing 

905 sentiments more effectually, he always selected for himself 
the boldest literary services. He never came up in the rear, 
when the outworks had been carried and the breach entered. 
He pressed into the forlorn hope. At the beginning of tlie 
changes, he wrote with incomparable energy and eloquence 

1910 against the bishops. But, when his opinion seemed likely 
to prevail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned 
prelacy to the croAvd of writers who now hastened to insult 
a falling party. There is no more hazardous enterprise than 
that of beai'ing the torch of truth into those dark and in- 

1915 fected recesses in which no light has ever shone. But it 
Avas the choice and the pleasure of Milton to penetrate 
the noisome vapours, and to brave the terrible explosion. 
Those who most disapprove of his opinions must respect 
the hardihood with which he maintained them. He, in gen- 

1920 eral, left to others the credit of expounding and defending the 
popular parts of his religious and political creed. He took his 
own stand upon those which the great body of his country- 
men reprobated as criminal, or derided as paradoxical. He 
stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked the pre- 

1925 vailing systems of education. His radiant and beneficent 
career resembled that of the god of light and fertility. 

" Nitor in adversuiii ; iiec me, qui ciietora, viiicit 
Impetus, et rapido contrarius evelior orbi." 

It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton 
1930 should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they 
deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become 
acquainted with the full power of the English language. 
They abound with passages compared with which the finest 
declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a 
1935 perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gor- 
geous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the 
Paradise Lost has the great poet ever risen higher than in 



MILTON 57 

those parts of his controversial works in which his feelings, 
excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and 

1940 lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, 
" a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." 
We had intended to look more closely at these perform- 
ances, to analyse the peculiarities of the diction, to dwell at 
some length on the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica and 

1945 the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and to point out some 
of .those magnificent passages which occur in the Treatise 
of Keformation, and the Animadversions on the Remon- 
strant. But the length to which our remarks have already 
extended renders this impossible. 

1950 AVe must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear our- 
selves away from the subject. The days immediately fol- 
lowing the publication of this relic of Milton appear to be 
peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to his memory. And 
we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, we be 

1955 found lingering near his shrine, how worthless soever may 
be the offering which we bring to it. AVhile this book lies on 
our table, we seem to be contemporaries of the writer. We are 
transported a hundred and fifty years back. We can almost 
fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging; that 

iwowe see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded green 
hangings; that we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, 
rolling in vain to find the day ; that we are reading in the 
lines of his noble countenance the proud and mournful 
history of his glory and his affliction. We image to our- 

liMiS selves the breathless silence in which we should listen to 
his slightest Avord, the passionate veneration with which we 
should kneel to kiss his hand and weep upon it, the earnest- 
ness with which we should endeavour to console him, if 
indeed such a spirit could need consolation, for the neglect 

1970 of an age unworthy of his talents and his virtues, the eager- 
ness with Avhich we should contest with his daughters, or with 
his Quaker friend Elwood, the privilege of reading Homer 



58 MILTON 

to him, or of taking down the immortal accents which flowed 
from his lips. 

i!)75 These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be 
ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we have 
written shall in any degree excite them in other minds. We 
are not much in the habit of idolising either the living or 
the dead. And we think that there is no more certain indi- 

1980 cation of a weak and ill-regulated intellect than that pro- 
pensity which, for want of a better name, we will venture 
to christen Eoswellism. But there are a few characters 
which have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest 
tests, which have been tried in the furnace and have proved 

1985 pure, which have been weighed in the balance and have 
not been found wanting, which have been declared sterling 
by the general consent of mankind, and which are visibly 
stamped with the image and superscription of the Most 
High. These great men we trust that we know how to 

1990 prize ; and of these was Milton. The sight of his books, 
the sound of his name, are pleasant to us. His thoughts 
resemble those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin 
Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gardens of Para- 
dise to the earth, and which were distinguished from the 

1995 productions of other soils, not only by superior bloom and 
sweetness, but by miraculous eiflcacy to invigorate and to 
heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, but to elevate 
and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study either 
the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot, with- 

2000 out aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works with 
which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal 
with which he laboured for the public good, the fortitude 
with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty 
disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dan- 

2005 gers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, 
and the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and 
with his fame. 




JOSEPH ADDISON. 
After the painting by Godfrey Kneller. 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
(July, 1843.) 

The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols. 8vo. 
London : 1843. 

Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to 
publish a book renounces by that act the franchises apper- 
taining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the 
utmost rigour of critical procedure. From that opinion we 
5 dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which boasts 
of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents 
and acquirements to influence the public mind, it would be 
of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or 
unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, 

10 merely because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we 
conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to 
imitate the courteous Knight who found himself compelled 
by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are 
told, defended successfully the cause of which he was the 

15 champion; but, before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda 
for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the 
point and edge.^ 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only immxmities which 
Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, 

20 and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of 
James the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges 
enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold 
to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky 
choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often pro- 

25 duced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected 
to the severe discipline which it is sometimes necessary to 

1 Orlando Furioso, xlv. 68. 
59 



60 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be re- 
minded by a gentle touch, like that with which the Laputan 
flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. 

30 Our readers will probably infer from what we have said 
that Miss Aikin's book lias disappointed us. The truth is, 
that she is not well ac(iuainted with her subject. No person 
who is not familiar with the political and literary history 
of England during the reigns of William the Third, of 

35 Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good 
life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, 
and many will think that we pay her a compliment, when 
we say that her studies have taken a different direction. 
She is better acquainted with Shakespeare and Raleigh, than 

40 with Congreve and Prior; and is far more at home among 
the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's, than among the 
Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen 
Anne's tea table at Hampton. She seems to have written 
about the Elizabethan age, because she had read much 

45 about it; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a lit- 
tle about the age of Addison, because she had determined 
to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to 
describe men and things without having either a correct 
or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into 

50 errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss 
Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of 
Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition of this 
work may probably be required. If so, we hope that every 
paragraph will be revised, and that every date and fact 

55 about which there can be the smallest doubt will be care- 
fully verified. 

To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much 
like affection as any sentiment can be, which is inspired by 
one who has been sleeping a liundred and twenty years in 

<')0 Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that this feeling 
will not betray us into that abject idolatry which we have 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 61 

often had occasion to reprehend in others, and which seldom 
fails to make both the idolater and the idol ridiculous. A 
man of genius and virtue is but a man. All his powers 

05 cannot be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him 
perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to 
admit that Addison has left us some compositions which do 
not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal 
to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr. Blair's, 

70 and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. 
It is praise enovxgh to say of a writer that, in a high depart- 
ment of literature, in which many eminent writers have 
distinguished themselves, he has had no equal; and this 
may with strict justice be said of Addison. 

75 As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which 
he received from those who, bewitched by his fascinating 
society, and indebted for all the comforts of life to his gen- 
erous and delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly, in 
his favourite temple at Button's. But, after full inquiry 

80 and impartial reflection, we have long been convinced that 
he deserved as much love and esteem as can be justly 
claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some blem- 
ishes may vmdoubtedly be detected in his character; but the 
more carefully it is examined, the more will it appear, to 

85 use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the noble 
parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, 
of ingratitude, of envy. Men may easily be named, in 
whom some particular good disposition has been more con- 
spicuous than in Addison. But the just harmony of quali- 

!M) ties, the exact temper between the stern and the humane 
virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not only of 
moral rectitude, but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish 
him from all men Avho have been tried by equally strong 
temptations, and about whose conduct we possess equally 

95 full information. 

His father was the Ileverend Lancelot Addison, who. 



62- LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some 
figure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio pages 
in the Biographia Britannica. Lancelot was sent up, as 

100 a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, 
Oxford, in the time of the Commonwealth, made some 
progress in learning, became, like most of his fellow stu- 
dents, a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of the Uni- 
versity, and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. 

105 When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence 
by reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families 
of those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered 
over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loy- 
alty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the garrison 

110 of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost 
his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal 
to England as part of the marriage portion of the Infanta 
Catharine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent. A 
more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It was 

115 difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were more 
tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers 
within the wall or by the Moors without it. One advan- 
tage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent opportu- 
nity of studying the history and manners of Jews and 

120 Mahometans ; and of this opportunity he appears to have 
made excellent use. On his return to England, after some 
years of banishment, he published an interesting volume 
on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the 
Hebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning. 

125 He rose to eminence in his profession, and became one of 
the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of 
Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would 
have been made a bishop after the Revolution, if he had not 
given offence to the government by strenuously opposing, in 

1,30 the Convocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William and 
Tillotson. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 63 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tan- 
gier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's childhood we 
know little. He learned his rudiments at schools in his 

135 father's neighbourhood, and was then sent to the Charter 
House. The anecdotes which are popularly related about 
his boyish tricks do not harmonise very well with what we 
know of his riper years. There remains a tradition that he 
was the ^ringleader in a barring out, and another tradition 

140 that he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, 
where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after 
a long search he was discovered and brought home. If 
these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what 
moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was 

145 transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men. 

We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks 
may have been, he pursued his studies vigorously and suc- 
cessfully. At fifteen he was not only fit for the university, 
but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning 

150 which would have done honour to a Master of Arts. He 
was entered at Queen's College, Oxford; but he had not been 
many months there when some of his Latin verses fell by 
accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magda- 
lene College. The young scholar's diction and versification 

155 were already such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. 
Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise; nor 
was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution liad Just 
taken place; and nowhere had it been hailed with more 
delight than at Magdalene College. That great and opulent 

IGO corporation had been treated by James, and by his Chan- 
cellor, with an insolence and injustice which, even in such 
a Prince and in such a Minister, may justly excite amaze- 
ment, and which had done more than even the prosecution 
of the Bishops to alienate the Church of England from the 

165 throne. A president, duly elected, had been violently 
expelled from his dwelling; a Papist had been set over the 



64 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

society by a royal mandate; the Fellows who, in conformity 
with their oaths, had refused to submit to this usurper, 
had been driven forth from their quiet cloisters and gar- 

170 dens, to die of want or to live on charity. But the day of 
redress and retribution speedily came. The intruders were 
ejected : the venerable House was again inhabited by its old 
inmates : learning flourished under the rule of the wise and 
virtuous Hough; and with learning was united a mild and 

175 liberal spirit too often Avanting in the princely colleges of 
Oxford. In consequence of the troubles through which the 
society had passed, there had been no valid election of new 
members during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there 
was twice the ordinary number of vacancies; and thus Dr. 

180 Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friend 
admittance to the advantages of a foundation then generally 
esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. 

At Magdalene Addison resided during ten years. He 
was, at first, one of those scholars who are called Demies, 

185 but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college is still 
proud of his name: his portrait still hangs in the hall; and 
strangers are still told that his favourite walk was under 
the elms which fringe the meadow on the banks of the Cher- 
well. It is said, and is highly probable, that he was dis- 

I90tinguished among his fellow stiulents by the delicacy of his 
feelings, by the shyness of his manners, and by tlie assiduity 
with which he often prolonged his studies far into the 
night. It is certain that his reputation for al)ility and 
learning stood high. Many years later, the ancient Doctors 

195 of Magdalene continued to talk in their common room of 
his boyish compositions, and expressed their sorrow that no 
copy of exercises so remarkable had been preserved. 

It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has 
committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of over- 

200 rating Addison's classical attainments. In one department 
of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 65 

possible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin poets, 
from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Pru- 
dentius, Avas singularly exact and profound. He under- 

205 stood them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had 
the finest and most discriminating perception of all their 
peculiarities of style and melody; nay, he copied their 
manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all 
their British imitators who had preceded him, Buchanan 

'210 and Milton alone excepted. This is high praise; and 
beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that 
Addison's serious attention, during his residence at the 
university, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin 
poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect other prov- 

215 inces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them only a 
cursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more 
than an ordinary acquaintance with the political and moral 
writers of Rome; nor was his own Latin prose by any 
means equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, 

220 though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respect- 
able at Oxford, was evidently less than that which many 
lads now carry away every year from Eton and Rugby. A 
minute examination of his works, if we had time to make 
such an examination, would fully bear out these remarks. 

225 We will briefly advert to a few of the facts on which our 
judgment is grounded. 

Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison appended 
to his version of the second and third books of the Meta- 
morphoses. Yet those Notes, while they show him to have 

2:30 been, in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, show 
also how confined that domain was. They are rich in appo- 
site references to Virgil, Statins, and Claudian; but they 
contain not a single illustration drawn from the Greek 
poets. Now, if, in the whole compass of Latin literature, 

2.35 there be a passage which stands in need of illustration drawn 
from the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the 



66 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for 
that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whom he 
has sometimes followed minutely. But neither to Euripides 

240 nor to Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion; 
and we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by 
supposing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. 
His Travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quota- 
tions, happily introduced; but scarcely one of those quo- 

24:5tations is in prose. He draws more illustrations from 
Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his notions 
of the political and military affairs of the Komans seem to 
be derived from poets and poetasters. Spots made memo- 
rable by events which have changed the destinies of the 

250 world, and which have been worthily recorded by great 
historians, bring to his mind only scraps of some ancient 
versifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he naturally 
remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army endured, 
and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polyb- 

255 ins, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid 
hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Eubicon 
he never thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the 
stern conciseness of the Commentaries, or of those Letters 
to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of 

260 hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His 
only authority for the events of tlie civil war is Lucan. 

All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence 
are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without recalling 
one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic 

265 dramatists ; but they brought to his recollection innumer- 
able passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statins, and Ovid. 

The same may be said of the Treatise on Medals. In 
that pleasing work we find about three hundred passages 
extracted with great judgment from the Roman poets; but 

270 we do not recollect a single passage taken from any Roman 
orator or historian; and we are confident that not a line is 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 67 

quoted from any Greek writer. No person, who had derived 
all his int'ormation on the subject of medals from Addison, 
would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical 

275 interest equal, and in beauty of execution far superior, to 
those of Rome. 

If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addi- 
son's classical knowledge was confined within narrow limits, 
that proof would be furnished by his Essay on the Evidences 

280 of Christianity. The Roman poets throw little or no light 
on the literary and historical questions which he is under 
the necessity of examining in that Essay. He is, therefore, 
left completely in the dark; and it is melancholy to see 
how helplessly he gropes his w^ay from blunder to blunder. 

285 He assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as 
absurd as that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as 
rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about the 
Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the 
senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces 

290 the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record of 
great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of super- 
stition; for to superstition Addison was by no means prone. 
The truth is that he was writing about what he did not 
understand. 

2!t5 ]\riss Aikin has discovered a letter, from which it appears 
that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one of several 
writers whom the booksellers engaged to make an English 
version of Herodotus; and she infers that he must have 
been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight 

300 to this argument, when we consider that his fellow labourers 
were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is remem- 
bered chiefly as the nominal author of the worst book on 
Greek history and philology that ever was printed; and 
this book, bad as it is, Boyle was u.nable to produce without 

305 help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the ancient tongues, 
it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has con- 



68 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

founded an aphorism with an apoplitliegm, and tliat when, 
in his verse, he treats of classical subjects, liis habit is to 
regale his readers with four false quantities to a page. 

310 It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison 
were of as much service to him as if they had been more 
extensive. The world generally gives its admiration, not 
to the man who does Avhat nobody else even attempts to do, 
but to the man who does best what multitudes do well. 

315 Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the other 
scholars of his time that few among them could discover his 
superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addison 
excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly 
valued and assiduously cultivated at all English seats of 

320 learning. Every body who had been at a public school had 
written Latin verses; many had written such verses with 
tolerable success, and were quite able to appreciate, though 
by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison 
imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the 

,".25 Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom 
the Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris was as unin- 
telligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. 

Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are common 
to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favourite piece is the 

330 Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies; for in that piece we 
discern a gleam of the fancy and humour which many years 
later enlivened thousands of breakfast tables. Swift 
boasted that he Avas never known to steal a hint; and he 
certainly owed as little to his predecessors as any modern 

335 writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he borrowed, 
perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches in his 
Voyage to Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers 
judge. 

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about the 

340 breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is 
enouarh to strike an awe into the beholders." 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 69 

About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared, 
Addison wrote these lines : 

" Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
345 Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 

Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet oiniies 
Mole gigantea, mediainque exsurgit in uhiaui." 

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly 
admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name 

350 had ever been heard by the wits who thronged the coffee- 
houses round Drury-Lane theatre. In his twenty-second 
year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer 
of English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines 
to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and many reverses, 

355 had at length reached a secure and lonely eminence among 
the literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have 
been much gratified by the young scholar's praise; and 
interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison 
was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was 

3(;o certainly presented by Congreve to Charles Montague, who 
was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the 
Whig party in the House of Commons. 

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself 
to poetry. He published a translation of part of the fourth 

305 Georgic, Lines to King William, and other performances of 
equal value, that is to say, of no value at all. But in those 
days, the public was in the habit of receiving with applause 
pieces which would now have little chance of obtaining the 
iSTewdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. Aiid the reason 

370 is obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favourite 
measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so 
that the lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall 
correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and 
that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an 

375 art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle, or shoeing a 



70 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

horse, and may be learned Ly any human being who has 
sense enough to learn any thing. But, like other mechani- 
cal arts, it was gradually improved by means of many 
experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope 

380 to discover the trick, to make himself complete master of 
it, and to teach it to every body else. From the time when 
his Pastorals appeared, heroic versification became matter 
of rule and compass; and, before long, all artists were on 
a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one 

385 happy thought or expression were able to write reams of 
couplets Avhich, as far as euphony was concerned, could not 
be distinguished from tliose of Pope himself, and which 
very clever writers of the reign of Charles the Second, 
Rochester, for example, or Marvel, or Oldliam, would have 

390 contemplated with admiring despair. 

P>en Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. 
But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how to manu- 
facture decasyllabic verses, and poured them forth by thou- 
sands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, 

395 and as like each other as the blocks which have passed 
through Mr. Brunei's mill, in the dockyard at Portsmouth. 
Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by 
an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. Take as a 
specimen his translation of a celebrated passage in the 

400^neid: 

" This child our parent earth, stirr'd up witli spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 
405 And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 

And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she wears."' 

410 Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat 
fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abuii- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 71 

dance. We take the first lines on which we open in his 
version of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse than 
the rest: 

415 " O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led. 

By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 

4'JO The current pass, and seek the further shore." 

Ever since tlie time of Pope there has been a glut of 
lines of this sort; and we are now as little disposed to 
admire a man for being able to write them as for being 
able to write his name. But in the days of William the 

i'25 Third such versification was rare ; and a rhymer who had 
any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark 
ages a person who could write his name passed for a great 
clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and 
others whose only title to fame was that they said in toler- 

4;ho able metre what might have been as well said in prose, or 
what was not worth saying at all, were honoured with 
marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. 
With these Addison must have ranked, if he had not earned 
true and lasting glory by performances which very little 

435 resembled his juvenile poems. 

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from 
Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In return for 
this service, and for other services of the same kind, the 
veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the 

440 ^Eneid, complimented his young friend with great liberality, 
and indeed with more liberality than sincerity. He affected 
to be afraid that his own performance would not sustain a 
comparison with the version of the fourth Georgic, by " the 
most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." "After his bees," 

445 added Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely worth the 
hiving." 



72 LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON 

The time had now arrived when it was necessary for 
Addison to choose a calling. Every thing seemed to point 
his course towards the clerical profession. His habits were 

450 regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large 
ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it has 
given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. 
Ur. Lancelot Addison held an honourable })lace in the 
Church, and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergy- 

455 man. It is clear, from some expressions in the young 
man's rhymes, that his intention Avas to take orders. 
But Charles Montague interfered. Montague had first 
brought himself into notice by verses, well timed and not 
contemptibly written, but never, we think, rising above 

4(30 mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and for his country, 
he early quitted poetry, in which he could never have 
attained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Rocdiester, and 
turned his mind to official and parliamentary business. It 
is written that the ingenious person, who undertook to 

465 instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of flying, 
ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the 
air, and instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added 
that the wings, which were unable to support him through 
the sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he was in the 

470 water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles Montague, 
and of men like him. When he attempted to soar into the 
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed; but, as 
soon as he had descended from that ethereal elevation into 
a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised 

475 him above the mass. He became a distinguished financier, 
debater, courtier, and party leader. He still retained his 
fondness for the pursuits of his early days ; but he showed 
that fondness, not by wearying the public with his own 
feeble performances, but by discovering and encouraging 

480 literary excellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, 
who could easily have vanquished him as a competitor. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OY ADDISON 73 

revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the 
encouragement of learning, he was cordially svipported by 
the ablest and most virtuous of his colleagues, the Lord 

485 Chancellor Somers. Though both these great statesmen 
had a sincere love of letters, it was not solely from a love 
of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths of high 
intellectual qualifications in the public service. The Revo- 
lution had altered the whole system of government. Before 

4iK) that event, the press had been controlled by censors, and 
the Parliament had sat only two months in eight' years. 
'Now the press was free, and had begun to exercise unprece- 
dented influence on the public mind. Parliament met annu- 
ally and sat long. The chief power in the State had passed 

495 to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was 
natural that literary and oratorical talents should rise in 
value. There was danger that a Government which neg- 
lected such talents might be subverted by them. It was, 
therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which led 

500 Montague and Somers to attach such talents to the Whig 

party, by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. 

It is remarkable that, in a neighbouring country, we have 

recently seen similar effects follow from similar causes. 

The Ilevolution of July 1830 established representative 

505 government in France. The men of letters instantly rose 
to the highest importance in the State. At the present 
moment, most of the persons whom we see at the head both 
of the Administration and of the Opposition have been Pro- 
fessors, Historians, Journalists, Poets. The influence of 

510 the literary class in England, during the generation which 
followed the Revolution, was great, but by no means so 
great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the 
aristocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful and 
deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France 

515 had no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep down her 
Addisons and Priors. 



74 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had jnst com- 
pleted his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his life 
was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of the 

520 Ministry were kindly disposed towards him. In political 
opinions he already was, what he continued to be through 
life, a firm though a moderate Whig. He had addressed 
the most polished and vigorous of his early English lines 
to Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a Latin poem, 

523 truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the Peace of 
Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends was, 
it should seem, to employ him in the service of the crown 
abroad. But an intimate knowledge of the French language 
was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist; and this 

530 qualification Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, 
thought desirable that he should pass some time on the 
Continent in preparing himself for official emplo3'ment. 
His own means were not such as would enable liim to travel; 
but a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured 

535 for him by the interest of the Lord Chancellor. It seems 
to have been apprehended that some difliculty might be 
started by the rulers of Magdalene College. But the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer Avrote in the strongest terms 
to Hough. The State — such was the purport of ]\[ontague's 

540 letter — could not, at that time, spare to the Church such 
a man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already 
occupied by adventurers, who, destitute of every liberal art 
and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the country 
which they pretended to serve. It had become necessary 

545 to recruit for the public service from a very different class, 
from that class of which Addison was the representative. 
The close of the Minister's letter was remarkable. " I am 
called," he said, "an enemy of the Church. But I will 
never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out 

550 of it." 

This interference was successful; and, in tlie summer of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 75 

1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still 
retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and 
set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, 

555 proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kind- 
ness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Montague, 
Charles Earl of Manchester, who had just been appointed 
Ambassador to the Court of France. The Countess, a Whig 
and a toast, was probably as gracious as her lord; for 

560 Addison long retained an agreeable recollection of the 
impression which she at this time made on him, and, in 
some lively lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, 
described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the 
genuine bloom of England, had excited among the painted 

565 beauties of Versailles. 

Lewis the Eourteenth was at this time expiating the vices 
of his yovith by a devotion which had no root in reason, and 
bore no fruit of charity. The servile literature of France 
had changed its character to suit the changed character of 

570 the prince. No book appeared that had not an air of sanc- 
tity. Kacine, who was just dead, had passed the close of 
his life in writing sacred dramas ; and Dacier was seeking 
for the Athanasian mysteries in Plato. Addison described 
this state of things in a short but lively and graceful letter 

575 to Montague. Another letter, written about the same time 
to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances 
of gratitude and attachment. " The only return I can make 
to your Lordship," said Addison, "will be to apply myself 
entirely to my business." With this view he quitted Paris 

580 and repaired to Blois, a place where it was supposed that 
the French language was spoken in its highest purity, and 
where not a single Englishman could be found. Here he 
passed some months pleasantly and profitably. Of his way 
of life at Blois, one of his associates, an Abbe named 

585 Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this 
account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused 



76 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

much, talked little, had fits of absence, aud either had no 
love affairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the Abbe. 
A man who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen 

590 and fellow stiulents, had always been remarkably shy and 
silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, 
and among foreign companions. But it is clear from 
Addison's letters, some of which were long after published 
in the Guardian, that, while he appeared to be absorbed in 

595 his own meditations, he was really observing French society 
with that keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which 
was peculiarly his own. 

From Blois he returned to Paris; and, having now mas- 
tered the French language, found great pleasure in the 

600 society of French philosophers and poets. He gave an 
account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly inter- 
esting conversations, one with Malbranche, the other with 
Boileau. Malbranche expressed great partiality for the 
English, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook liis 

605 head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so 
unjust as to call the author of the Leviathan a poor silly 
creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully 
relating, in his letter, the circumstances of his introduction 
to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends and rivals 

Gio of his youth, old, deaf, and melancholy, lived in retirement, 
seldom went either to Court or to the Academy, and was 
almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the English and of 
English literature he knew nothing. He had hardly heard 
the name of Dry den. Some of our countrymen, in the 

U15 warmth of their patriotism, have asserted that this ignorance 
must have been affected. We own that we see no ground 
for such a supposition. English literature was to the 
French of the age of Lewis the Fourteenth what German 
literature was to our own grandfathers. Very few, we sus- 

G20 pect, of the accomplished men who, sixty or seventy years 
ago, used to dino in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 77 

at Streatliain with Mrs. Tlirale, had the slightest notion 
that AViehxnd was one of the first wits and poets, and Les- 
sing, beyond all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau 

625 knew just as little about the Paradise Lost, and about 
Absalom and Achitophel; but he had read Addison's Latin 
poems, and admired them greatly. They had given him, 
he said, quite a new notion of the state of learning and 
taste among the English. Johnson will have it that these 

630 praises were insincere. "Nothing," says he, "is better 
known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peev- 
ish contempt of modern Latin ; and therefore his profession 
of regard was probably the effect of his. civility rather than 
approbation." Now, nothing is better known of Boileau 

635 than that he was singularly sparing of compliments. We 
do not remember that either friendship or fear ever induced 
him to bestow praise on any composition which he did not 
approve. On literary questions, liis caustic, disdainful, 
and self-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to 

640 which every thing else in France bowed down. He had the 
spirit to tell Lewis the Fourteenth firmly, and even rudely, 
that his Majesty knew nothing about poetry, and admired 
verses which were detestable. What was there in Addison's 
position that could induce the satirist, whose stern and 

645 fastidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to 
turn sycophant for the first and last time? Nor was Boileau's 
contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. 
He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would 
ever be written in a dead language. And did he think 

650 amiss? Has not the experience of centuries confirmed his 
opinion? Boileau also thought it probable, that, in the 
best modern Latin, a writer of the Augustan age would 
have detected ludicrous improprieties. And who can think 
otherwise? What modern scholar can honestly declare that 

655 he sees the smallest impurity in the style of Livy? Yet is 
it not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste 



78 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the 
inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any modern scholar under- 
stood Latin better than Frederic the Great understood 

060 French? Yet is it not notorious that Frederic the Great, 
after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but 
French, during more than half a century, after unlearning 
his mother tongue in order to learn French, after living 
familiarly during many years with French associates, could 

G(d5 not, to the last, compose in French, without imminent risk 
of committing some mistake which would have moved a 
smile in the literary circles of Paris? Do Ave believe that 
Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Rob- 
ertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? And are there 

670 not in the Dissertation on India, tlie last of Dr. Robertson's 
works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a 
London apprentice would laugh? But does it follow, because 
we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the 
noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent 

675 Bourne? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or 

tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern 

Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, 

Boileau says — "Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille 

. par-la blamer les vers latins que vous m'avez envoyes d'un 

680 de vos illustres academicieiis. Je les ai trouves fort beaux, 
et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et 
de Virgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have been 
praised by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit 
to praise any thing. He says, for example, of the Pere 

685 Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to have come to 
life again. But the best proof that Boileau. did not feel 
the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses which 
has been imputed to him, is, that he wrote and published 
Latin verses in several metres. Indeed it happens, curiously 

6U0 enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced by 
him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. 
We allude to the fragment which begins — 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 79 

" Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Loiige Alpes citra natuin de patre Sicauibro, 
695 Miisa, jubes ? " 

For these reasons we feel assured that the praise, which 
Boileau bestowed on the Machiiue Gesticulantes and the 
Gemno-Pi/gmceomachia, Avas sincere. He certainly opened 
himself to Addison Avith a freedom which was a sure indi- 

7m cation of esteeni. Literature was the chief subject of con- 
versation. The old man talked on his favourite theme much 
and well, indeed, as his young hearer thought, incompara- 
bly well. Boilean had undoubtedly some of the qualities 
of a great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had 

705 strong sense. His literary code was formed on narrow 
principles : but in applying it, he showed great judgment 
and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the ideas 
of which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was 
well acquainted with the great Greek writers ; and, though 

71(1 unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired 
the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned 
from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we 
think, to discover, in the Spectator and the Guardian, traces 
of the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious, 

71.') which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 

While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which 
made that capital a disagreeable residence for an English- 
man and a Whig. Charles, second of the name. King of 
Spain, died ; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, Duke 

720 of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King of 
France, in direct violation of his engagements both with 
Great Britain and with the States General, accepted the 
bequest on behalf of his grandson. The House of Bourbon 
was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been 

725 outwitted, and found herself in a situation at once degrad- 
ing and perilous. The people of France, not presaging the 
calamities by which they were destined to expiate the per- 



80 LTFE ANT) WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

lidy of their sovereign, went mad with pride and delight. 
Every man looked as if a great estate had just been left 

Toohim. "The French conversation," said Addison, "begins 
to grow insnpportable ; that which was before the vainest 
nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the 
arrogant exnltation of the Parisians, and probably foresee- 
ing that the peace between France and England conld not 

7,35 be of long duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December 1700^ he embarked at Marseilles. As he 
glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the 
sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their ver- 
dnre nnder the winter solstice. Soon, however, he encoun- 

740tered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. The 
captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed lum- 
self to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The Eng- 
lish heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself against the 
terrors of death with devotions of a very different kind. 

74.") How strong an impression this perilous voyage made on 
him, appears from the ode, " How are thy sei-vants blest, 
O Lord ! ■' which was long after published in the Spectator. 
After some days of discomfort and danger, Addison was 
glad to land at Savona, and to make his way, over moun- 

7r)0 tains where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the 
city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles 
whose names were inscribed on her I>ook of Gold, Addison 
made a short stay. He admired the narrow streets over- 

755 hung by long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich with 
frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and the 
tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the 

1 It is strsiiiye tliat Addison slioidd, in tlie first line of liis Travels, have 
misdated liis departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still more 
strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narrative into 
inextricable confusion, should have been repeated in a succession of edi- 
tions, and never detected by Tickell or by Hard. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 81 

House of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he 
contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral with 

TGamore wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus 
while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they 
raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the 
gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the 
gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, 

7(;5 and serenades. Here he was ^ once diverted and provoked, 
by the absurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced the 
Italian stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was in- 
debted for a valuable liint. He Avas present when a ridicu 
lous play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it 

770 seems, was in love with a daughter of Scipio. The lady liad 
given her heart to Ctesar. The rejected lover deternuned 
to destroy himself. He appeared seated in his library, a 
dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him ; 
and, in this position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he 

775 struck the blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a 
circumstance as this should have escaped the notice of all 
Addison's biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be the 
smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities 
and anachronisms, struck the traveller's imagination, and 

780 suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the Eng- 
lish stage. It is well known that about this time he began 
his tragedy, and that he finished the first four acts before 
he returned to England. 

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some 

785 miles out of the beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest 
independent state in Europe. On a rock where the snow 
still lay, though the Italian spring was now far advanced, 
was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads 
which led to the secluded town were so bad that few travel- 

790lers had ever visited it, and none had ever published an 
account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natnred 
smile at the simple manners and institutions of this singu- 



82 LIFE AMU WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

lar coiimiuuity. But he observed, with the exultation of a 
Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the terri- 

TX) tory of the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and 
contented peasantry, while the rich plain Avhich surrounded 
the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely 
less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America. 

xit Rome Addison renuiined on his first visit only long 

suo enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pan- 
theon. His haste is the more extraordinary because the 
Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no hint 
which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from 
a spectacle which every year allures from distant regions 

805 persons of far less taste and sensibility than his. Possibly, 
travelling, as he did, at the charge of a Cxovernment distin- 
guished by its enmity to the Church of Rome, he may have 
thought that it would be imprudent in him to assist at the 
most magnificent rite of that Church. Many eyes wovdd 

810 be upon him; and he might find it difficult to behave in 
such a manner as to give offence neither to his patrons in 
England, nor to those among whom he resided. Whatever 
his motives nuiy have been, he turned his back on the most 
august and affecting ceremony which is known among men, 

815 and posted along the Appian Way to Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its 
chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain 
were indeed there. But a farmhouse stood on the theatre 
of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew over the streets 

820 of Pompeii. The temples of Psestum had not indeed been 
hidden from the eye of man by any great convulsion of 
nature ; but strange to say, their existence was a secret 
even to artists and antiquaries. Though situated within 
a few hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvator had 

825 not long before painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, 
those noble remains were as little known to Europe as the 
ruined cities overgrown by tlie forests of Yucatan. Wliat 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 83 

was to be seen at Naples Addison saw. He climbed Vesu- 
vius, explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among 

830 the vines and almond trees of Caprese. But neither the 
wonders of nature, nor those of art, could so occupy his 
attention as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, 
the abuses of the government and the misery of the people. 
The great kingdom which had just descended to Philip the 

835 Fifth, Avas in a state of paralytic dotage. Even Castile and 
Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared with 
the Italian dependencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and 
Aragon might be called prosperous. It is clear that all the 
observations which Addison made in Italy tended to con-. 

840 firm him in the political opinions which he had adopted at 
home. To the last, he always spoke of foreign travel as 
the best cure for Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the Tory 
foxhunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a 
man to jabber French, and to talk against passive obedience. 

845 From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along 
the coast which his favourite Virgil had celebrated. The 
felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet 
were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of 
Misenus, and anchored at- lught under the shelter of the 

850 fabled promontory of Circe. The voyage ended in the 
Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid 
with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of .^neas. 
From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to 
Rome; and at Rome he remained during those hot and 

855 sickly months when, even in the Augustan age, all who 
could make their escape fled from mad dogs and from 
streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs of the 
season in the country. It is probable that, when he, long 
after, poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Providence 

8fi0 which had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, 
he was thinking of the August and September which he 
passed at Rome. 



84 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

It was not till the latter end of October that he tore him- 
self away from the masterpieces of ancient and modern art 

865 which are collected in the city so long the mistress of the 
world. He then journeyed northward, passed through 
Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prejudices in favour 
of classic architecture as he looked on the magnificent 
cathedral. At Florence he spent some days with the Duke 

870 of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the pleasures of ambition, 
and impatient of its pains, fearing both parties, and loving 
neither, had determined to hide in an Italian retreat talents 
and accomplishments which, if they had been united with 
fixed principles and civil courage, might have made him 

875 the foremost man of his age. These days, we are told, 
passed pleasantly ; and we can easily believe it. For 
Addison was a delightful companion when he was at his 
ease; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot that he was 
a Talbot, had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who 

880 came near him. 

Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to 
the sculptures in the Museum, which he preferred even to 
those of the Vatican. He then inirsued his journey through 
a country in which the ravages, of the last war were still 

885 discernible, and in which all men were looking forward 
with dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already 
descended from the Ilhaetian Alps, to dispute with Catinat 
the rich plain of Lombardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy 
was still reckoned among the allies of Lewis. England 

8<K3 had not yet actually declared war against France : but 
Manchester had left Paris; and the negotiations which 
produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon 
were in progress. Under such circumstances, it was desira- 
ble for an English traveller to reach neutral ground with- 

8!)5 out delay. Addison resolved to cross Mont Cenis. It was 
December ; and the road was very different from that which 
now reminds the stranger of the power and genius of Napo- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 85 

leon. The winter, however, was mikl ; and the passage was, 
for those times, easy. To tliis journey Addison alluded when, 

900 in the ode which we have already quoted, he said that for 

him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary Alpine hills. 

It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he composed 

his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord Halifax. 

That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now known only to 

905 curious readers, and will hardly be considered by those to 
whom it is known as in any perceptible degree heightening 
Addison's fame. It is, however, decidedly superior to any 
English composition which he had previously published. 
Nay, we think it quite as good as any poem in heroic metre 

910 which appeared during the interval between the death of 
Dryden and the publication of the Essay on Criticism. It 
contains passages as good as the second-rate passages of 
Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Parnell 
or Prior. 

915 P>ut, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the 
Epistle, it undoubtedly does honour to the principles and 
spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing to give. 
He had fallen from power, had been held up to obloquy, 
had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, though 

920 his Peers had dismissed the impeachment, had, as it seemed, 
little chance of ever again tilling high office. The Epistle, 
written at such a time, is one among many proofs that there 
was no mixture of cowardice or meanness in the suavity 
and moderation which distinguished Addison from all the 

925 other public men of those stormy times. 

At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change of 
ministry had taken place in England, and that the Earl of 
Manchester had become Secretary of State. Manchester 
exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was thought 

930 advisable that an English agent should be near the person 
of Eugene in Italy ; and Addison, whose diplomatic educa- 
tion was now finished, was the man selected. He was pre- 



86 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

paring to enter on his honourable functions, when all his 
prospects were for a time darkened by the death of Will- 

935 iam the Third. 

Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, politi- 
cal, and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion 
appeared in the first measures of her reign. Manchester 
was deprived of the seals, after he had held them only a 

940 few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax were sworn of 
the Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his three 
patrons. His hopes of employment in the public service 
were at an end ; his pension was stopped ; and it was neces- 
sary for him to support himself by his own exertions. 

945 He became tutor to a young English traveller, and appears 
to have rambled with his pupil over great part of Switzer- 
land and Germany. At this time he wrote his pleasing 
Treatise on Medals. It was not published till after his 
death ; but several distinguished scholars saw the manu- 

950 script, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to 
the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 

From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where he 
learned the melancholy news of his father's death. After 
passing some months in the United Provinces, he returned 

955 about the close of the year 170.'> to England. He was there 
cordially received by his friends, and introduced by them 
into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which were collected all 
the various talents and accomplishments which then gave 
lustre to the Whig party. 

900 Addison was, during some months after his return from 
the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But 
it was soon in the power of his noble patrons to serve him 
effectually. A political change, silent and gradual, but of 
the highest importance, was in daily progress. The acces- 

9G5 sion of Anne had been hailed by the Tories with transports 
of joy and hope ; and for a time it seemed that the Whigs 
had fallen never to rise again. The throne was surrounded 



LIFE AND WHITINGS OF AUDISON 87 

by men supposed to be attached to the prerogative and to 
the Church ; and among these none stood so high in the 

970 favour of the Sovereign as tlie Lord Treasurer Godolphin 
and the Captain General JSIarlborough. 

The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully 
expected that the policy of these ministers would be directly 
opposed to that which had been almost constantly followed 

OT.") l)y William ; that the landed interest would be favoured at 
the expense of trade ; that no addition would be made to 
the funded debt ; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters 
by the late King would be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; 
that the Avar with France, if there must be such a war, 

\m would, on our part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the 
Government would avoid close connections with foreign 
powers, and, above all, with Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were 
fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The prejudices 

985 and passions which raged without control in vicarages, in 
cathedral closes, and in the manor-houses of foxhunting 
squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the ministry. 
Those statesmen saw that it Avas both for th.e public 
interest, and fur their own interest, to adopt a Whig policy, 

<M) at least as respected the alliances of the country and the 
conduct of the Avar. But, if the foreign policy of the 
Whigs Avere adopted, it Avas impossible to abstain from 
adopting also their financial policy. The natural conse- 
quences folloAved. The rigid Tories Avere alienated from 

995 the Government. The votes of the Whigs became necessary 
to it. The votes of the Whigs could be secured only by 
further concessions ; and further concessions the Queen was 
induced to make. 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties 

1000 bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 
1826, as in 1704, there Avas a Tory ministry divided into 
two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Canning and 



88 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marlborough 
and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham and Jersey 

1005 were, in 1704, what Lord Eklon and Lord Westmoreland 
were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in a situation 
resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In 
1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in 
office. There was no avowed coalition between them and 

1010 the moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct com- 
munication tending to such a coalition had yet taken place ; 
yet all men saw that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, 
that it was already half formed. Such, or nearly such, was 
the state of things when tidings arrived of the great battle 

1015 fought at Blenheim on the 13th August, 1704. By the 
Whigs the news was hailed with transports of joy and pride. 
No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remembered by 
them against the Commander whose genius had, in one 
day, changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, 

1020 humbled the House of I>ourbon, and secured the Act of Settle- 
ment against foreign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was 
very different. They could not indeed, without imprudence, 
openly express regret at an event so glorious to their country; 
but their congratulations were so cold and sullen as to give 

1025 deep disgust to the victorious general and his friends. 

Godolphin was not a reading man. AVhatever time he 
could spare from business he was in the habit of spending 
at Newmarket or at the card table. But he was not abso- 
lutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was too intelligent an 

1030 observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable 
engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders 
had strengthened their party, and raised their character, by 
extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. 
He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding 

1035 badness of the poems which appeared in honour of the bat- 
tle of Blenheim. One of those poems has been rescued from 
oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 89 

" Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
And each man momited on his caiaering beast ; 
1040 Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 

Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not 
know. He understood how to negotiate a loan, or remit a 
subsidy : he was also well versed in the history of running 
horses and fighting cocks ; but his acquaintance among the 

1045 poets was very small. He consulted Halifax; but Halifax 
affected to decline the office of adviser. He had, he said, 
done his best, wdien he had power, to encourage men whose 
abilities and acquirements might do honour to their coun- 
try. Those times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. 

1050 Merit was suffered to pine in obscurity; and the public 
money was squandered on the nndeserving. " I do know," 
he added, " a gentleman who w^ould celebrate the battle in a 
manner worthy of the subject : but I wall not name him." 
Godolphin, who was expert at the soft answer which turneth 

1055 aw^ay wrath, and who was under the necessity of paying 
court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too much 
ground for Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss 
should in time be rectified, and that in the mean time the 
services of a man such as Halifax had described should be 

lOiJO liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Addison, but, 
mindful of the dignity as well as of the pecuniary interest 
of his friend, insisted that the Minister should apply in 
the most courteous manner to xVddison himself ; and this 
Godolphin promised to do. 

10(J5 Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, 
over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this humble lodg- 
ing he was surprised, on the morning which followed the 
conversation betw^een Godolphin and Halifax, by a visit 
from no less a person than the Right Honourable Henry 

1070 Boyle, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards 
Lord Carleton. This high-born minister had been sent by 
the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to the needy poet. Addi- 



90 LIFE AND WRITINCxS OF ADDTSON 

son readily luuleitook the proposed task, a task which, to 
so good a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When the poem 

1075 was little more than half finished, he showed it to Godol- 
phin, who was delighted with it, and particularly with the 
famous similitude of the Angel. Addison was instantly 
appointed to a Commissionership worth about two hundred 
pounds a year, and was assured that this appointment was 

1080 only an earnest of greater favours. 

The Campaign came forth, and was as much admired by 
the public as by the Minister. It pleases us less on the 
whole than the Epistle to Halifax. Yet it undoubtedly 
ranks high among the poems which appeared during the 

1085 interval between the death of Dry den and the dawn of 
Pope's genius. The chief merit of the Campaign, we think, 
is that which was noticed by Johnson, the manly and 
rational rejection of fiction. The first great poet whose 
works have come down to us sang of war long before war 

1090 became a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was 
enmity between two little Greek towns, each poured forth 
its crowd of citizens, ignorant of disci})line, and armed with 
implements of labour rudely turned into weapons. On each 
side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had 

1095 enabled them to procure good armour, horses, and chariots, 
and Avhose leisure had enabled them to practise military ex- 
ercises. One such chief, if he were a man of great strength, 
agility, and courage, would probably be more formidable 
than twenty common men ; and the force and dexterity 

1100 with which he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable 
share in deciding the event of the day. Such were probably 
the battles with which Homer was familiar. But Homer 
related the actions of men of a former generation, of men 
Avho sprang from the Gods, and communed with the Gods 

1105 face to face, of men, one of whom could with ease hurl 
rocks which two sturdy hinds of a later period would be 
unable even to lift. He therefore naturally represented 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 91 

their martial exploits as resembling in kind, but far surpass- 
ing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and most expert 

1110 combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial 
armour, drawn by celestial coursers, grasping the spear 
which none but himself could raise, driving all Troy and 
Lycia before him, and choking Scamander with dead, was 
only a magnificent exaggeration of the real hero, who, 

1115 strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded 
by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, and 
whirled along by horses of Thessaliau breed, struck down 
with his own right arm foe after foe. In all rude societies 
similar notions are found. There are at this day countries 

iiiiO where the Lifeguardsman Shaw would be considered as a 
much greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Buo- 
naparte loved to describe tlie astonishment with which the 
Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, 
distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, 

1125 and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his 
sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five 
feet high, and rode like a butcher, could be the greatest 
soldier in Europe. 

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth 

1130 as poetry requires. But truth was altogether wanting to 
the performances of those who, writing about battles which 
had scarcely any thing in common with the battles of his 
times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of Silius 
Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He under- 

11.35 took to record in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle 
between generals of the first order : and his narrative is 
made up of the hideous wounds which these generals in- 
flicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings a spear 
which grazes the shoulder of the consul ISTero; but Nero 

1140 sends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris 
and Butes and Maris and Arses, and the longhaired Adher- 
bes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapliarus and Monajsus, 



92 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus 
through the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone 

1145 of Telesinus with a huge stone. This detestable fashion 
was copied in modern times, and continued to prevail down 
to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described 
William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, 
and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable 

1150 a writer as John Philips, the author of the Splendid Shil- 
ling, represented Marlborough as having won the battle of 
Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and skill in fence. 
The following lines may serve as an example : 

"Churchill, viewing where 

1155 The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 

Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
EoUing in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 

1160 Attends his furious course. Around his head 

The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 

1165 With headless ranks. What can they do ? Or how 

Withstand his wide-destroying sword ? " 

Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from 
this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for the 
qualities Avhich made Marlborough truly great, energy, 

1170 sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet extolled 
the flrmness of that mind which, in the midst of confusion, 
uproar, and slaughter, examined and disposed every thing 
with the serene wisdom of a higher intelligence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison of 

1175 Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We will 
not dispute the general justice of Johnson's remarks on 
this passage. But we must point out one circumstance 
which appears to have escaped all tlie critics. The extraor- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 93 

dinary effect which this simile produced when it first 
1180 appeared, and which to the following generation seemed 
inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line 
which most readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis, 

" Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd." 

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The great 

1185 tempest of November 1703, the only tempest which in our 
latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane, had 
left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all men. No 
other tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a 
parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole fleets 

ii'.W had been cast away. Large mansions had been blown down. 
One Prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his Palace. 
London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities 
just sacked. Hundreds of families were still in mourning. 
The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruins of houses, 

1195 still attested, in all the southern counties, the fury of the 
blast. The popularity which the simile of the Angel enjoyed 
among Addison's contemporaries, has always seemed to us 
to be a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in 
rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the general. 

1200 Soon after the Campaign, was published Addison's Nar- 
rative of his Travels in Italy. The first effect produced by 
this Narrative was disappointment. The crowd of readers 
who expected politics and scandal, speculations on the 
projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about the jollities 

1205 of convents and the amours of cardinals and nuns, were 
confounded by finding that the writer's mind was much 
more occupied by the war between the Trojans and Rutulians 
than by the war betAveen France and Austria; and that he 
seemed to have heard no scandal of later date than the gal- 

l2iolantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, however, the 
judgment of the many was overruled by that of the few, 
and, before the book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought 



94 LIFE AND WKITINGS OF ADDISON 

that it sold for five times the original price. It is still read 
with pleasure: the style is pure and flowing; the classical 

1215 quotations and allusions are numerous and happy; and we 
are now and then charmed by that singularly humane and 
delicate humour in which Addison excelled all men. Yet 
this agreeable work, even when considered merely as the 
history of a literary tour, may justly be censured on account 

1220 of its faults of omission. We have already said that, 
though rich in extracts from the Latin poets, it contains 
scarcely any references to the Latin orators and historians. 
We must add that it contains little, or rather no informa- 
tion, respecting the history and literature of modern Italy. 

1225 To the best of our remembrance, Addison does not mention 
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de' 
Medici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us, that at Ferrara 
he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard 
the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and 

1230 Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius Flaccus and 
Sidonius Apollinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings 
a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of 
Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. But 
he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa 

1235 Croce ; he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollecting 
the Spectre Huntsman, and wanders up and down Rimini 
without one thought of Francesca. At Paris, he had eagerly 
sought an introduction to Boileau; but he seems not to have 
been at all aware that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a 

1240 poet with whom Boileau could not sustain a comparison, of 
the greatest lyric poet of modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. 
This is the more remarkable, because Filicaja was the 
favourite poet of the accomplished Somers, under whose 
protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account of 

1245 the Travels is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew 
little, and cared less, about the literature of modern Italy. 
His favourite models were Latin. His favourite critics 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 95 

■were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read 
seemed to him monstrous, and the other half tawdry. 

1250 His Travels were followed by the lively Opera of Rosa- 
mond. This piece was ill set to music, and therefore failed 
on the stage; but it completely succeeded in print, and is 
indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness with which 
the verses glide, and the elasticity with w^hich they bound, 

1255 is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We are inclined to 
think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and 
blank verse to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing 
airy and spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would have 
stood far higher than it now does. Some years after his 

12C0 death, Rosamond was set to new music by Doctor Arne; and 
was performed with complete success. Several passages 
long retained their popularity, and were daily sung, during 
the latter part of George the Second's reign, at all the 
harpsichords in England. 

12(55 While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and 
the prospects of his party, were constantly becoming brighter 
and brighter. In the spring of 1705, the ministers were 
freed from the restraint imposed by a House of Commons, 
in which Tories of the most perverse class had the ascend- 

1270 ency. The elections were favourable to the Whigs. The 
coalition which had been tacitly and gradually formed was 
now openly avowed. The Great Seal was given to Cowper. 
Somers and Halifax were sworn of the Council. Halifax 
was sent in the following year to carry the decorations of 

1275 the order of the garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, 
and was accompanied on this honourable mission by Addi- 
son, who had just been made Undersecretary of State. The 
Secretary of State under whom Addison first served was Sir 
Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed 

1280 to make room for the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, 
Earl of Sunderland. In every department of the state, 
indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place 



96 LTFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

to their opponents. At the close of 1707, the Tories who 
still remained in office strove to rally, with Harley at their 

1285 head. Bnt the attempt, though favoured by the Queen, who 
had always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quar- 
relled with the Duchess of Marlborough, Avas unsuccessful. 
The time was not yet. The Captain General was at the 
height of popularity and glory. The Low Church party 

1290 had a majority in Parliament. The country squires and 
rectors, though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were 
for the most part in a state of torpor, which lasted till they 
were roused into activity, and indeed into madness, by the 
prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were 

1295 compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was com- 
plete. At the general election of 1708, their strength in 
the House of Commons became irresistible; and, before the 
end of that year, Somers was made Lord President of the 
Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

i:iOO Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons 
which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons 
was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature 
made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once 
rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after 

1305 remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great 
writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will 
think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should 
have had no unfavourable effect on his success as a poli- 
tician. In our time, a man of high rank and great fortune 

1310 might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a con- 
siderable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a 
mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live 
by his pen, should in a few years become successively 
Undersecretary of State, chief Secretary for Ireland, and 

1315 Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent. Addi- 
son, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a 
post which Dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 97 

Eiissell, and Bentinck, have thought it an honour to fill. 
Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the 

iSiiO highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached. And this he 
did before he had been nine years in Parliament. We 
must look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to 
the peculiar circumstances in which that generation was 
placed. During the interval which elapsed between the 

1325 time when the Censorship of the Press ceased, and the time 
when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely reported, 
literary talents were, to a public man, of much more im- 
portance, and oratorical talents of much less importance, 
than in our time. At present, the best way of giving rapid 

1330 and wide publicity to a fact or an argument, is to introduce 
that fact or argument into a speech made in Parliament. 
If a political tract were to appear superior to the Conduct 
of the Allies, or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the 
circulation of such a tract would be languid indeed when 

1335 compared with the circulation of every remarkable word 
uttered in the deliberations of the legislature. A speech 
made in the House of Commons at four in. the morning is 
on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speech made on 
the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes in 

1340 Antrim and Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of 
the shorthand writer, has to a great extent superseded the 
pamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. The 
best speech could then produce no effect except on those 
Avho heard it. It was only by means of the press that the 

i;345 opinion of the public without doors could be influenced; and 
the opinion of the yniblic without doors could not but be of 
the highest importance in a country governed by parlia- 
ments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial par- 
liaments. The pen was therefore a more formidable political 

1.350 engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended 
only in Parliament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt 
and Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of what was 



98 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

necessary, when they sat down amidst the acclamations of 
tlie House of Commons. They liad still to plead their cause 

1355 before the country, and this they could do only by means 
of the press. Their works are now forgotten. But it is 
certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous 
scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Kemarks, than 
these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when leader 

loooof the Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a year, 
edited the Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of liter- 
ary habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and re- 
touched and corrected many more. These facts sufficiently 
show of how great importance literary assistance then was 

lo(j5to the contending parties. St. John was, certainly, in 
Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker, Cowper was probably 
the best Whig speaker. But it may well be doubted 
whether St. John did so much for the Tories as Swift, and 
whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs as Addison. 

Io70 When tliese things are duly considered, it will not be 
thought strange that Addison should have climbed higher 
in the state than any other Englishman has ever, by means 
merely of literary talents, been able to climb. Swift would, 
in all probability, have climbed as high, if he had not been 

1375 encumbered by his cassock and his pudding sleeves. As 
far as the homage of the great went. Swift had as much of 
it as if he had been Lord Treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived from his literary 
talents was added all the influence which arises from char- 

1380 acter. The world, always ready to think the worst of needy 
political adventurers, was forced to make one exception. 
Kestlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the 
vices ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But fac- 
tion itself could not deny that Addison liad, through all 

1385 changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opin- 
ions, and to his early friends; that his integrity was with- 
out stain ; that his whole deportment indicated a fine sense 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 99 

of the becoming; that, in the utmost heat of controversy, 
his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and 

1390 social decorum ; that no outrage could ever provoke him to 
retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman; and 
that his only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and a 
modesty which amounted to bashfulness. 

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of his 

1395 time; and much of his popularity he owed, Ave believe, to 
that very timidity Avhich his friends lamented. That 
timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents to 
the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted 
that envy which would otherwise have been excited by fame 

1400 so splendid, and by so rapid an elevation. No man is so 
great a favourite with the public as he who is at once an 
object of admiration, of respect, and of pity; and such were 
the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed 
the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation, declared 

uoo with one voice that it was superior even to his writings. 
The brilliant Mary Montague said, that she had known all 
the wits, and tliat Addison was the best company in the 
world. The malignant Pope was forced to own, that there 
was a charm in Addison's talk, which could be found 

1410 nowhere else. Swift, when burning with animosity against 
the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella that, after all, 
he had never known any associate so agreeable as Addison. 
Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, said, that 
the conversation of Addison was at once the most polite, 

1415 and the most mirthful, that could be imagined; that it was 
Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite 
something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, but 
Addison alone. Young, an excellent judge of serious con- 
versation, said, that when Addison was at his ease, he went 

1420 on in a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain 
the attention of every hearer. Nor were Addison's great 
colloquial powers more admirable than the courtesy and 



100 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

softness of heart which appeared in his conversation. At 
the same time, it woukl be too much to say that lie was 

1425 wliolly devoid of the malice which is, perhaps, inseparable 
from a keen sense of the ludicrous. He had one habit 
which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we 
hardly know how to blame. If his first attempts to set a 
presuming dunce right were ill received, he changed his 

14.30 tone, "assented with civil leer," and lured the flattered 
coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such was 
his practice we should, we think, have guessed from his 
works. The Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and 
the Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is so 

1433 zealous for the honour of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent 
specimens of this innocent mischief. 

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his 
rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As 
soon as he entered a large company, as soon as he saw an 

1440 unknown face, his lips were sealed, and his manners became 
constrained. None who met him only in great assemblies 
would have been able to believe that he was the same man 
who had often kept a few friends listening and laughing 
round a table, from the time when the play ended, till the 

1445 clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet, 
even at such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. 
To enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it was 
necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own 
phrase, think aloud. "There is no such tiling," he used to 

1450 say, "as real conversation, but between two persons." 

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor 
unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious faults 
which can with justice be imputed to him. He found that 
wine broke the spell which lay on his fine intellect, and 

1455 was therefore too easily seduced into convivial excess. Such 
excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the 
most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 101 

mark of ill-breeding that it was almost essential to tlie char- 
acter of a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen 

1460 on a white ground ; and almost all the biographers of Addi- 
son have said something about this failing. Of any other 
statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no 
more think of saying that he sometimes took too much 
wine, than that he wore a long wig and a sword. 

1405 To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must 
ascribe another fault which generally arises from a very 
different cause. He became a little too fond of seeing him- 
self surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to whom he 
was as a King or rather as a God. All these men were far 

1470 inferior to him in ability, and some of them had very seri- 
ous faults. Nor did those faults escape his observation; 
for, if ever there was an eye which saw through and through 
men, it was the eye of Addison. But, with the keenest 
observation, and the finest sense of the ridiculous, he had 

1475 a large charity. The feeling with which he looked on most 
of his humble companions was one of benevolence, slightly 
tinctured with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their 
company; he was grateful for their devoted attachment; 
and he loaded them with benefits. Their veneration for 

1480 him appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson was 
regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It was not 
in the power of adulation to turn such a head, or deprave 
such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in candour be 
admitted that he contracted some of the faults which can 

1485 scarcely be avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as 
to be the oracle of a small literary coterie. 

One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a 
young Templar of some literature, and a distant relation of 
Addison. There was at this time no stain on the character 

1490 of Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career would 
have been prosperous and honourable, if the life of his 
cousin had been prolonged. But, when the master was 



102 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

laid in the grave, the disciple broke loose from all restraint, 
descended rapidly from one degree of vice and misery to 

1495 another, ruined his fortvuie by follies, attempted to repair 
it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and unhappy 
life by self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, 
gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained his 
affection and veneration for Addison, and recorded those 

1500 feelings in the last lines Avhich he traced before he hid 
himself from infamy under London Bridge. 

Another of Addison's favourite companions was Ambrose 
Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, who had the 
honour of bringing into fashion a species of composition 

1505 which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. 
But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as 
Tope long afterwards called it, were Eichard Steele and 
Thomas Tickell. 

Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had 

1510 been together at the Charter House and at Oxford ; but cir- 
cumstances had then, for a time, separated them widely. 
Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been 
disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had 
served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher's 

1515 stone, and had written a religious treatise and several 
comedies. He was one of those people whom it is impos- 
sible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, 
his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, 
and his principles weak. His life was spent in sinning 

1520 and repenting; in inculcating what was right, and doing 
what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and 
honour; in practice he was much of the rake and a little of 
the swindler. He was, however, so goodnatured that it was 
not easy to be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid 

1525 moralists felt more inclined to pity than to blame him, 
when he diced himself into a spunging house, or drank 
himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele with kind- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 103 

ness not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little success, to 
keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, pro- 

1530 cured a good place for him, corrected his plays, and, though 
by no means rich, lent him large sums of money. One of 
these loans appears, from a letter dated in August 1708, to 
have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary 
transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said 

1535 that, on one occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, 
provoked Addison to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. 
We cannot join with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. 
Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. 
Few private transactions which took place a hundred and 

I5i0 twenty years ago, are proved by stronger evidence than this. 
But we can by no means agree with those who condemn 
Addison's severity. The most amiable of mankind may 
well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned 
hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to himself, for 

1545 the purpose of relieving a friend in distress, is squandered 
with insane profusion. We will illustrate our meaning by 
an example, which is not the less striking because it is 
taken from fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia, 
is represented as the most benevolent of human beings ; yet 

1550 he takes in execution, not only the goods, but the person 
of his friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong 
measure because he has been informed that Booth, while 
pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts, 
has been buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. No 

1555 person who is well acquainted with Steele's life and corre- 
spondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison 
as Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The 
real history, we have little doubt, was something like this : 
— A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in pathetic 

1560 terms, and promising reformation and speedy repayment. 
Poor Dick declares that he has not an inch of candle, or a 
bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for a shoulder 



104 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

of mutton. Addison is moved. He determines to deny 
himself some medals which are wanting to his series of the 

1565 Twelve Caesars; to put off buying the new edition of Bayle's 
Dictionary; and to wear his old sword and buckles another 
year. In this way he manages to send a hundred pounds 
to his friend. The next day he calls on Steele, and finds 
scores of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles are 

1570 playing. The table is groaning under Champagne, Bur- 
gundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a 
man whose kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff's 
officers to reclaim what is due to him? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had 

1575 introduced himself to public notice by writing a most 
ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of the Opera of 
Rosamond. He deserved, and at length attained, the first 
place in Addison's friendship. For a time Steele and 
Tickell were on good terms. But they loved Addison too 

1580 much to love each other, and at length became as bitter 
enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. 

At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison 
was consequently under the necessity of quitting London 

1585 for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, which was 
then Avorth about two thousand pounds a year, he obtained 
a patent appointing him keeper of the Irish Records for 
life, with a salary of three or four hundred a year. Budgell 
accompanied his cousin in the capacity of private Secretary. 

1590 Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but Whig- 
gism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licentious and 
corrupt, but was distinguished from other libertines and 
jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the strong- 
est contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. 

1595 Many parts of the Irish administration at this time appear 
to have deserved serious blame. But against Addison there 
was not a murmur. He long afterwards asserted, what all 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 105 

the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove, that 
his diligence and integrity gained the friendship of all the 

1600 most considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we 
think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biographers. 
He was elected member for the borough of Cavan in the 
summer of 1709; and in the journals of two sessions his 

KJOoname frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear to 
indicate that he so far overcame his timidity as to make 
speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable; for the 
Irish House of Commons was a far less formidable audience 
than the English House ; and many tongues which were tied 

1610 by fear in the greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. 
Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the 
fame gained by his single speech, sat mute at Westminster 
during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when 
he was Secretary to Lord Halifax. 

1015 While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which 
he owes his high and permanent rank among British writers. 
As yet his fame rested on performances which, tliough 
highly respectable, were not built for duration, and which 
would, if he had produced nothing else, have now been 

1620 almost forgotten, on some excellent Latin verses, on some 
English verses which occasionally rose above mediocrity, 
and on a book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicat- 
ing any extraordinary powers of mind. These works showed 
him to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. The time 

1025 had come when he was to prove himself a man of genius, 
and to enrich our literature with compositions which will 
live as long as the English language. 

In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, of 
which he was far indeed from foreseeing the consequences. 

1630 Periodical papers had during many years been published 
in London. Most of these were political; but in some of 
them questions of morality, taste, and love casuistry had 



106 LIFE AXD WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

been discussed. The literary merit of these works was 
small indeed; and even their names are now known only 

iG35to the curious. 

Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, at 
the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus had access to 
foreign intelligence earlier and more authentic than was in 
those times within the reach of an ordinary newswriter. 

1040 This circumstance seems to have suggested to him the 
scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a new plan; It 
was to appear on the days on which the post left London 
for the country, which were, in that generation, the Tues- 
days, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was to contain the 

1045 foreign news, accounts of theatrical representations, and 
the literary gossip of Will's and of the Grecian. It was 
also to contain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day, 
compliments to beauties, pasquinades on noted sharpers, 
and criticisms on popular preachers. The aim of Steele 

1050 does not appear to have been at first higher than this. He 
was not ill qualified to conduct the work which he had 
planned. His public intelligence he drew from the best 
sources. He knew the town, and had paid dear for his 
knowledge. He had read much more than the dissipated 

1055 men of that time were in the habit of reading. He was a 
rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style 
was easy and not incorrect; and, though his wit and humour 
were of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to 
his compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary readers 

1000 could hardly distinguish from comic genius. His writings 
have been well compared to those light wines which, though 
deficient in body and flavour, are yet a pleasant small drink, 
if not kept too long, or carried too far. 

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imaginary 

1005 person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry 
or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had assumed the 
name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against Par- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 107 

bridge, the maker of almanacks. Partridge had been fool 
enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined 

1670 in a second pamphlet still more diverting than the first. 
All the wits had combined to keep np the joke, and the town 
was long in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined to 
employ the name which this controversy had made popular; 
and, in April 1709, it was annonnced that Isaac Bickerstaff, 

1675 Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper called 
the Tatler. 

Addison had not been consulted about this scheme, but as 
soon as he heard of it, he determined to give his assistance. 
The effect of that assistance cannot be better described than 

itjsoin Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, "like a 
distressed j^rince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his 
aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once 
called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on 
him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, "was advanced 

1685 indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intended it." 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. 

George's Channel his first contributions to the Tatler, had 

no notion of the extent and variety of his own powers. He 

was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with a hundred ores. 

1690 But he had been acquainted only with the least precious 
part of his treasures, and had hitherto contented himself 
with producing sometimes copper and sometimes lead, in- 
termingled with a little silver. All at once, and by mere 
accident, he had lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the 

1695 finest gold. 

The mere choice and arrangement of his words would 
have sufficed to make his Essays classical. For never, not 
even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the English 
language been written with such sweetness, grace, and 

1700 facility. But this was the smallest part of Addison's 
praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French 
style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. 



108 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the present day, 
his genius would have triumphed over all faults of manner. 

1705 As a moral satirist, he stands unrivalled. If ever the best 
Tatlers and Spectators were equalled in their own kind, we 
should be inclined to guess that it must have been by the 
lost comedies of Menander. 

In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior to 

1710 Cowley or Butler. No single ode of Cowley contains so 
many happy analogies as are crowded into the Lines to Sir 
Godfrey Kneller; and we would undertake to collect from 
the Spectators as great a number of ingenious illustrations 
as can be found in Hudibras. The still liigher faculty of 

1715 invention Addison possessed in still larger measure. The 
numerous fictions, generally original, often wild and gro- 
tesque, but always singularly graceful and happy, which 
are found in his Essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a 
great poet, a rank to which his metrical compositions give 

1720 him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, of all 
the shades of human character, he stands in the first class. 
And what he observed he had the art of communicating in 
two widely different ways. He could describe virtues, 
vices, habits, whims, as well as Clarendon. But he could 

1725 do something better. He could call human beings into 
existence, and make them exhibit themselves. If we wish 
to find any thing more vivid than Addison's best portraits, 
we must go eitlier to Shakespeare or to Cervantes. 

But what shall we say of Addison's humour, of his sense 

1730 of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in 
others, and of drawing mirth from incidents which occur 
every day, and from little peculiarities of temper and 
manner, such as may be found in every man? We feel the 
charm: we give ourselves up to it: but we strive in vain to 

1735 analyse it. 

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar 
pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 109 

other great satirists. The three most eminent masters of 
the art of ridicule, during the eighteenth century, were, 

1740 we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of the 
three had the greatest power of moving laughter may be 
questioned. But each of them, within his own domain, 
was supreme. 

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is 

1745 without disguise or restraint. He gambols; he grins; he 
shakes his sides; he points the finger; he turns up the 
nose; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swift is 
the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never 
joins in it. He appears in his works such as he appeared 

1750 in society. All the company are convulsed with merriment, 
while the Dean, the author of all the mirth, preserves an 
invincible gravity, and even sourness of aspect, and gives 
utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies, with 
the air of a man reading the commination service. 

1755 The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift 
as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the 
French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion 
of severity into his countenance while laughing inwardly ; 
but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure 

I7(i0 serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an 
almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost 
imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that either 
of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a gentle- 
man, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous is con- 

1765 stantly tempered by good nature and good breeding. 

We own that the humour of Addison is, in our opinion, 
of a more delicious flavour than the humour of either 
Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that 
both Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, 

1770 and that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The 
Letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, 
and imposed, during a long time, on the Academicians of 



110 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

Paris. There are passages in Arbuthiiot's satirical works 
which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's best 

1775 writing. But of the many eminent men Avho have made 
Addison their model, though several have copied his mere 
diction with happy effect, none has been able to catch the 
tone of his pleasantry. In the World, in the Connoisseur, 
in the Mirror, in the Lounger, there are numerous papers 

1780 written in obvious imitation of his Tatlers and Spectators. 
Most of those papers have some merit; many are very lively 
and amusing; but there is not a single one which could be 
passed off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest 
perspicacity. 

1785 But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from Swift, 
from Voltaire, from almost all the other great masters of 
ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which 
we find even in his merriment. Severity, gradually harden- 
ing and darkening into misanthropy, characterises the 

1790 works of Swift. The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not 
inhuman; but he venerated nothing. Neither in the mas- 
terpieces of art nor in the purest examples of virtue, neither 
in the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigma of the 
grave, could he see any thing but subjects for drollery. 

1795 The more solemn and august the theme, tlie more monkey- 
like was his grimacing and chattering. The mirth of Swift 
is the mirth of Mephistophiles; the mirth of Voltaire is 
the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, 
a portion of the happiness of Seraphim and just men made 

1800 perfect be derived from an excpiisite perception of the ludi- 
crous, their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth 
of Addison; a mirth consistent with tender compassion for 
all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is 
sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, 

1805110 doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever been 
associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His 
humanity is without a parallel in literary history. The 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 111 

highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless jiower without 
abusing it. No kind of power is more formidable than the 

1810 power of making men ridiculous; and that power Addison 
possessed in boundless measure. How grossly that power 
was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well known. But 
of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has black- 
ened no man's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if 

1815 not impossible, to find in all the volumes which he has left 
us a single taunt which can be called ungenerous or unkind. 
Yet he had detractors, whose malignity might have seemed 
to justify as terrible a revenge as that which men, not 
superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and on 

1820 Franc de Pompignan. He was a politician; he w^as the 
best writer of his party; he lived in times of fierce excite- 
ment, in times when persons of high character and station 
stooped to scurrility such as is now practised only by the 
basest of mankind. Yet no provocation and no example 

1825 could induce him to return railing for railing. 

Of the service which his Essays rendered to morality it 
is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when the 
Tatler appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness and 
licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed 

1830 away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres into some- 
thing which, compared with the excesses of Etherege and 
Wycherley, might be called decency. Yet there still lin- 
gered in the public mind a pernicious notion that there was 
some connection between genius and profligacy, between 

1835 the domestic virtues and the sullen formality of the Puri- 
tans. That error it is the glory of Addison to have dis- 
pelled. He taught the nation that the faith and the 
morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in company 
with wit more sparkling than tlie wit of Congreve, and 

iKiO with humour richer than the humour of Vanbrugh. So 
effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which 
had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his 



112 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

time, the open violation of decency has always been con- 
sidered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revolu- 

18-15 tion, the greatest and most salutary ever effected by any 
satirist, he accomplished, be it remembered, without writing 
one personal lampoon. 

In the early contributions of Addison to the Tatler his 
peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from the 

1850 first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evident. 
Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to any thing that 
he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most admire Tom 
Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political Upholsterer, The 
Proceedings of the Court of Honour, the Thermometer of 

1855 Zeal, the Story of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs of the 
Shilling, are excellent specimens of that ingenious and 
lively species of fiction in which Addison excelled all men. 
There is one still better paper of the same class. But 
though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, 

I8(!0was probably thought as edifying as one of Smalridge's 
sermons, we dare not indicate it to tlie squeamish readers 
of the nineteenth century. 

During the session of Parliament which commenced in 
November 1709, and which the impeachment of Sacheverell 

is(;5 lias made memorable, Addison appears to have resided in 
London. The Tatler was now more popular than any peri- 
odical paper had ever been; and his connection with it was 
generally known. It was not known, however, that almost 
every thing good in the Tatler was his. The truth is that 

1870 the fifty or sixty numbers which we owe to him were not 
merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any five of 
them are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers 
in which he had no share. 

He required, at tliis time, all the solace which he could 

1875 derive from literary success. The Queen had always dis- 
liked the Whigs. She had during some years disliked the 
Marlborough family. P>ut, reigning by a disputed title, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 113 

she could not venture directly to oppose herself to a 
majority of both Houses of Parliament; and, engaged as 

1880 she was in a war on the event of which her own Crown was 
staked, she could not venture to disgrace a great and suc- 
cessful general. But at length, in the year 1710, the causes 
which had restrained her from showing her aversion to the 
Low Church party ceased to operate. The trial of Sachev- 

1885 erell produced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less 
violent than the outbreaks which we can ourselves remem- 
ber in 1820, and in 1831. The country gentlemen, the 
country clergymen, the rabble of the towns, were all, for 
once, on the same side. It was clear that, if a general 

I8i)0 election took place before the excitement abated, the Tories 
would have a majority. The services of Marlborough had 
been so splendid that they were no longer necessary. The 
Queen's throne was secure from all attack on the part of 
Lewis. Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the Eng- 

1895 lish and German armies would divide the spoils of Ver- 
sailles and Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring 
back the Pretender to St, James's. The Queen, acting by 
the advice of Harley, determined to dismiss her servants. 
In June the change commenced. Sunderland was the first 

11)00 who fell. The Tories exulted over his fall. The "Whigs 
tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her 
Majesty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secre- 
tary, and that she meditated no further alteration. But, 
early in August, Godolphin was surprised by a letter from 

MK)5 Anne, which directed liim to break his white staff. Even 
after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley 
kept up the hopes of the Whigs during another month; and 
tlien the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament 
was dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. The 

imo Tories were called to office. The tide of popularity ran 
violently in favour of the High Church party. That party, 
feeble in the late House of Commons, was now irresistible. 



114 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

The power -which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired, 
they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which 

1915 the whole pack set up for prey and for blood appalled even 
liini who had roused and unchained them. When, at this 
distance of time, we calmly review the conduct of the dis- 
carded ministers, we cannot but feel a movement of indigna- 
tion at the injustice with which they were treated. No body 

lifjoof men had ever administered the government with more 
energy, ability, and moderation ; and their success had been 
proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved Holland 
and Germany. They had humbled France. They had, as 
it seemed, all but torn Spain from the House of Bourbon. 

i'j'25T]iey had made England the first power in Europe. At 
home they had united England and Scotland. They had 
respected the rights of conscience and the liberty of the 
subject. They retired, leaving their country at the height 
of prosperity and glory. And yet they were pursued to 

1930 their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised 
against the government which threw away thirteen colonies, 
or against the government which sent a gallant army to 
perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 

None of the Whigs suffered more in tlie general wreck 

1935 than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecu- 
niary losses, of the nature of which we are imperfectly 
informed, when his Secretaryship Avas taken from him. 
He had reason to believe that he should also be deprived of 
the small Irish office which he held by patent. He had 

1940 just resigned his FelloAvship. It seems probable that he 
had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady, and 
that, while his political friends were in power, and while 
his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in the phrase 
of the romances which were then fashionable, permitted 

1915 to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. 
Addison the chief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opinion, 
two very different persons. All these calamities united, 



LIFE AND AVRITINGS OF ADDISON 115 

liowever, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness of a 
mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own wealth. 

1930 He told his friends, with smiling resignation, that they 
ought to admire his philosophy, that he had lost at once his 
fortune, his place, his fellowship, and his mistress, that he 
must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits 
were as good as ever. 

1955 He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his 
friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was the esteem 
with which he was regarded that, while the most violent 
measures were taken for the purpose of forcing Tory mem- 
bers on Whig corporations, he was returned to Parliament 

1900 without even a contest. Swift, who was now in London, 
and who had already determined on quitting the Whigs, 
wrote to Stella in these remarkable words: "The Tories 
carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's 
election has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if 

1905 he had a mind to be king, he would hardly be refused." 

The good will with which the Tories regarded Addison 
is the more honourable to him, because it had not been pur- 
chased by any concession on his part. During the general 
election he published a political Journal, entitled the Whig 

1970 Examiner. Of that Journal it may be sufficient to say that 
Johnson, in spite of his strong political prejudices, pro- 
nounced it to be superior in wit to any of Swift's writings 
on the other side. When it ceased to appear. Swift, in a 
letter to Stella, expressed his exultation at the death of so 

1975 formidable an antagonist. "He might well rejoice," says 
Johnson, "at the death of that which he could not have 
killed." "On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius of 
Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the 
superiority of his powers more evidently appear." 

1980 The only use which Addison appears to have made of the 
favour with which he was regarded by the Tories was to 
save some of his friends from the general ruin of the Whig 



IIG LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

party. He felt liimself to be in a situation which made it 
his duty to take a decided part in politics. But the case of 

ii>85 Steele and of Ambrose Phillipps was different. For Pliil- 
lipps, Addison even condescended to solicit, with what suc- 
cess we have not ascertained. Steele held two places. He 
was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. 
The Gazette was taken from him. But he was suffered 

1990 to retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an implied under- 
standing that he should not be active against the new gov- 
ernment; and he was, during more than two years, induced 
by Addison to observe this armistice with tolerable fidelity. 
Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon politics, 

1995 and the article of news, which had once formed about one 
third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The Tatler had 
completely changed its character. It was now nothing but 
a series of essays on books, morals, and manners. Steele 
therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and to commence 

2000 a new work on an improved plan. It was announced that 
this new work would be published daily. The undertaking 
was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash; but the 
event amply justified the confidence with which Steele 
relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On the second 

2005 of January 1711, appeared the last Tatler. At the begin- 
ning of March following, appeared the first of an incom- 
parable series of papers, containing observations on life and 
literature by an imaginary Spectator. 

The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addi- 

2010 son ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait was meant 
to be in some features a likeness of the painter. The 
Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a studious 
youth at the university, has travelled on classic ground, 
and has bestowed much attention on curious points of 

2015 antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his residence in 
London, and has observed all the forms of life which are 
to be found in that great city, has daily listened to the 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 117 

wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the 
Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and 

2020 with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morning, 
he often listens to the hum of the Exchange ; in the even- 
ing, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drury 
Lane theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents 
him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle of 

2025 intimate friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of the 
club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and the mer- 
chant, were uninteresting figures, fit only for a background. 
But the other two, an old country baronet and an old town 

2030 rake, though not delineated with a very delicate pencil, liad 
some good strokes. Addison took the rude outlines into 
his own hands, retouched them, coloured them, and is in 
truth the creator of the Sir Roger de Coverley and the Will 
Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. 

2035 The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both 
original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in the 
series may be read with pleasure separately; yet the five or 
six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has 
the interest of a novel. It must be remembered, too, that 

2040 at that time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture 
of the common life and manners of England, had appeared. 
Richardson was working as a compositor. Fielding was 
robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The 
narrative, therefore, which connects together the Spectator's 

2045 Essays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite 
and untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed con- 
structed with no art or labour. The events were such 
events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to 
see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet always calls Prince 

2050 Eugene, goes with the Spectator on the water to Spring 
Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is 
frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension 



118 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

so far as to go to the theatre when the Distressed Mother 
is acted. Tlie Spectator pays a visit in the summer to 

2053 Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old 
butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will 
Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law dis- 
cussed l)y Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest 
butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. 

20G0 Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club 
breaks up ; and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such 
events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are 
related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humour, 
such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such 

20G5 knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on 
the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that, 
if Addison had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it 
would have been superior to any that we possess. As it 
is, he is entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest 

2070 of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great 
English novelists. 

We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the Spec- 
tator. About three sevenths of the work are his; and it is 
no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is as good as 

2075 the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His best essays 
approach near to absolute perfection; nor is their excellence 
more wonderful than their variety. His invention never 
seems to flag ; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeat- 
ing himself, or of wearing out a subject. There are no 

2080 dregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of that 
prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass 
in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling 
foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of 
nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory 

2085 as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on 
the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the 
Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 119 

described with the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, 
a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the 

20[K) Vicar of Wakefield ; on the Friday, some sly Horatian plea- 
santry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet 
shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which 
will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. 
It is dangerous to select where there is so much that 

2095 deserves the highest praise. We will venture, however, to 
say, that any person who wishes to form a just notion of the 
extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well to 
read at one sitting the following papers, the two Visits to 
the Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the Journal of the 

2100 Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the Transmigrations 
of Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger De 
Cover ley. ^ 

The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the 
Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his critical 

2105 papers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and 
often ingenious. The very worst of them must be regarded 
as creditable to him, when the character of the school in 
which he had been trained is fairly considered. The best 
of them were much too good for his readers. In truth he 

2110 was not so far behind our generation as he was before his 
own. No essays in the Spectator were more censured and 
derided than those in Avluch he raised his voice against tlie 
contempt Avith which our fine old ballads were regarded, 
and showed the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished 

2115 and polished, gives lustre to the ^neid and the Odes of 
Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of Chevy Chace. 

It is not strange that the success of the Spectator should 
have been such as no similar work has ever obtained. The 
number of copies daily distributed was at first three thou- 

2120 sand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near 

1 Nos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343, 517. These papers are all in the 
first seven volumes. The eighth must be considered as a separate work. 



120 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

four thousand Aviien the stamp tax was imposed. That tax 
was fatal to a crowd of journals. The Spectator, however, 
stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circula- 
tion fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state 

2125 and to the authors. For particular papers, the demand was 
immense ; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were 
required. But this was not all. To have the Spectator 
served up every morning with the bohea and rolls, was a 
luxury for the few. The majority were content to wait till 

2130 essays enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten thou- 
sand copies of each volume were immediately taken off, and 
new editions were called for. It must be remembered, that 
the population of England was then hardly a third of what 
it now is. The number of Englishmen who were in the 

2135 habit of reading, was probably not a sixth of what it now 
is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in 
literature, was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more 
than one knight of the shire whose country seat did not 
contain ten books, receipt books and books on farriery 

2140 included. In these circumstances, the sale of the Spectator 
must be considered as indicating a popularity quite as great 
as that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott 
and Mr. Dickens in our own time. 

At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to appear. It 

2145 was probably felt that the shortfaced gentleman and liis 
club had been long enough before the town; and that it was 
time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a new set 
of characters. In a few weeks the first number of the 
Guardian was published. But the Guardian was unfortu- 

2150 nate both in its birth and in its death. It began in dulness, 
and disappeared in a tempest of faction. The original plan 
was bad. Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six num- 
bers had appeared; and it was then impossible to make the 
Guardian what the Spectator had been. Nestor Ironside 

2155 and the Miss Lizards were people to whom even he could 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 121 

impart no interest. He could only furnish some excellent 
little essays, both serious and comic; and this he did. 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian, during 
the first two months of its existence, is a question which 

2100 has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which seems to 
us to admit of a very easy solution. He was then engaged 
in bringing his Cato on the stage. 

The first four acts of this drama had been lying in his 
desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensitive 

2165 nature shrank from the risk of a public and shameful fail- 
ure; and, though all who saw the manuscript were loud in 
praise, some thought it possible that an audience might 
become impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised 
Addison to print the play without hazarding a representa- 

2170 tion. At length, after many fits of apprehension, the poet 
yielded to the urgency of his political friends, who hoped 
that the public would discover some analogy between the 
followers of Csesar and the Tories, between Sempronius and 
the apostate Whigs, between Cato, struggling to the last for 

2175 the liberties of Rome, and the baud of patriots who still 
stood firm round Halifax and Wharton. 

Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane 
theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to himself. 
They, therefore, thought themselves bound to spare no cost 

2180 in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, would 
not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's 
waistcoat blazed with gold lace; Marcia's hoop was worthy 
of ^a Duchess on the birthday; and Cato wore a wig worth 
fifty guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is 

2185 undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. The 
part of the hero was excellently played by Booth. Steele 
undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze with 
the stars of the Peers in Opposition. The pit was crowded 
with attentive and friendly listeners from the Inns of Court 

2190 and the literary coffeehouses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Gov- 



122 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

eriior of the IJaiik of England, was at the head of a power- 
ful body of auxiliaries from the city, warm men and true 
Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's and Garroway's 
than in tlie haunts of wits and critics. 

'2VX) These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, 
as a body, i-egarded Addison with no unkind feelings. Nor 
was it for their interest, professing, as they did, profound 
reverence for law and prescription, and abhorrence both of 
popular insurrections and of standing armies, to appropri- 

2200 ate to themselves reflections thrown on the great military 
chief and demagogue, who, with the support of the legions 
and of the common people, subverted all the ancient insti- 
tutions of liis country. Accordingly, every shout that was 
raised by the members of the Kit Cat was echoed by the 

2205 High Churchmen of the October; and the curtain at length 
fell amidst thunders of unanimous applause. 

The delight and admiration of the town were described 
by the Guardian in terms which we might attribute to par- 
tiality, were it not that the Examiner, the organ of the 

2210 Ministry, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, 
found much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. 
Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown more zeal 
than taste or judgment. The honest citizens who marched 
under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously called, 

2215 probably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock 
than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred 
some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius their 
favourite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder 
plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence of 

2220 Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to 
applaud the lines about flying from prosperous vice and 
from the power of impious men to a private station, did not 
escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he 
could fly from nothing more vicious or impious than him- 

2225 self. The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a zealous 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 123 

Whig, was severely and not unreasonably censured as 
ignoble and out of place. But Addison was described, even 
by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and 
virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties 

2230 were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with 
factious squabbles. 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was 
disturbed, the most severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. 
Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his box, and pre- 

2235 sented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse of fifty 
guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against 
a perpetual Dictator. This was a pungent allusion to the 
attempt which Marlborough liad made, not long before his 
fall, to obtain a patent creating him Captain General for 

2240 life. 

It was April ; and in April, a hundred and thirty years 
ago, the London season was thought to be far advanced. 
During a whole month, however, Cato was performed to 
overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the 

2245 theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the sum- 
mer, the Drury Lane company went down to the Act at 
Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained an 
affectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplishments aiid 
virtues, his tragedy was acted during several days. The 

2250 gownsmen began to besiege the theatre in the forenoon, and 
by one in the afternoon all the seats were filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had so extraordinary 
an effect, the public, we suppose, has made up its mind. 
To compare it with the masterpieces of the Attic stage, with 

2255 the great English dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even 
with the productions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd 
indeed. Yet it contains excellent dialogue and declamation, 
and, among plays fashioned on the Erench model, must be 
allowed to rank high ; not indeed with Athalie, or Saul ; 

2260 but, we think, not below Ciuna, and certainly above any 



124 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

other English tragedy of the same school, above many of 
the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays of Voltaire 
and Alfieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it 
may, we have little doubt that Cato did as much as the 

22(i5 Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders united, to raise Addi- 
son's fame among his contemporaries. 

The modesty and good nature of the successful dramatist 
had tamed even the malignity of faction. Ikit literary 
envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than party spirit 

2270 It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the 
Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published Remarks 
on Cato, which were written with some acuteness and with 
much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended 
himself nor retaliated. On many points he had an excellent 

2275 defence; and nothing would have been easier than to retali- 
ate ; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad 
comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share than most men 
of those infirmities and eccentricities which excite laughter ; 
and Addison's power of turning either an absurd book or an 

2280 absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled. Addison, how- 
ever, serenely conscious of his superiority, looked with pity 
on his assailant, whose temper, nati;rally irritable and 
gloomy, had been soured by Avant, by controversy, and by 
literary failures. 

2285 Rut among the young candidates for Addison's favour 
there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and 
distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insincerity. 
Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had expanded 
to their full maturity ; and his best poem, the Rape of the 

2290 Lock, had recently been publislied. Of his genius, Addison 
had always expressed high admiration. But Addison had 
early discerned, what might indeed have been discerned 
by an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, 
crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on society 

22<>5for the unkiiulness of nature. In the .Sj)ectator, the Essay 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 125 

on Criticism had been praised with cordial warmth ; but a 
gentle hint had been added, that the writer of so excellent 
a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured person- 
alities. Pope, though evidently more galled by the censure 

2300 than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admoni- 
tion, and promised to profit by it. The two writers con- 
tinued to exchange civilities, counsel, and small good offices. 
Addison publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces ; and 
Pope furnished Addison with a prologue. This did not 

2305 last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured with- 
out provocation. The appearance of the Remarks on Cato 
gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice 
under the show of friendship; and such an opportunity 
could not but be welcome to a nature which was implacable 

2310 in enmity, and which always preferred the tortuous to the 
straight path. He published, accordingly, the Narrative of 
the Frenzy of John Dennis. P>ut Pope had mistaken his 
powers. He was a great master of invective and sarcasm : 
he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets, 

2315 brilliant with antithesis : but of dranuxtic talent he was 
altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on 
Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old 
grumbler Avould have been crushed. But Pope writing 
dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's imagery and his 

2320 own — a wolf, which, instead of biting, should take to kick- 
ing, or a monkey which should try to sting. The Narrative 
is utterly contemptible. Of argument there is not even the 
show ; and the jests are such as, if they were introduced 
into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling 

2325 gallery. Dennis raves about the drama; and the nurse 
thinks that he is calling for a dram. " There is," he cries, 
" no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, no 
change at all." " Pray, good Sir, be not angry," says the 
old woman ; " I'll fetch change." This is not exactly the 

2330 pleasantry of Addison. 



126 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

Tliere can be no doubt that Addison saw through this 
officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. So 
foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, and, 
if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do him 

2335 harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had 
never, even in self-defence, used those powers inhumanly 
or uncourteously ; and he was not disposed to let others 
make his fame and his interests a pretext under which they 
might commit outrages from which he had himself constantly 

2340 abstained. He accordingly declared that he had no concern 
in the Narrative, that he disapproved of it, and that, if he 
answered the remarks, he would answer them like a gentle- 
man ; and he took care to communicate this to Dennis. 
Pope was bitterly mortified ; and to this transaction we are 

2345 inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after 
regarded Addison. 

In September 1713 the Guardian ceased to appear. Steele 
had gone mad about politics. A general election had just 
taken place: he had been chosen member for Stockbridge; 

2350 and he fully expected to play a first part in Parliament. 
The immense success of the Tatler and Spectator had turned 
his head. He had been the editor of both those papers, and was 
not aware hoAV entirely they owed their influence and popu- 
larity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always violent, 

2355 were now excited by vanity, ambition, and faction, to such 
a pitch that he every day committed some offence against 
good sense and good taste. All the discreet and moderate 
members of his own party regretted and condemned his 
folly. " I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, 

2;!{)0 " about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the public 
may not be ruinous to himself. l>ut he has sent me word 
that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I may 
give him in this particidar will have no weight with 
him." 

23ii5 Steele set up a political paper called the Englishman, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 127 

which, as it was not supported by contributions from Addi- 
son, completely failed. By this work, by some other writ- 
ings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave him- 
self at the first meeting of the new Parliament, he made 

2^70 the Tories so angry that they determined to expel him. 
The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were unable to save 
him. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all dispassion- 
ate men as a tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. 
But Steele's violence and folly, though they by no means 

2375 justified the steps which his enemies took, had completely 
disgusted his friends; nor did he ever regain the place 
which he had held in the public estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the design of adding 
an eighth volume to the Spectator. In June 1714 the first 

2380 number of the new series appeared, and during about six 
months three papers were piiblished weekly. Nothing can 
be more striking than the contrast between the English- 
man and the eighth volume of the Spectator, between Steele 
without Addison and Addison without Steele. The English- 

2385 man is forgotten ; the eighth vohime of the Spectator con- 
tains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, 
in the English language. 

Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne 
produced an entire change in the administration of public 

23ii0 affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory party 
distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for any great 
effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bolingbroke, it 
was supposed, would be the chief minister. But the Queen 
was on her deathbed before the white staff had been given, 

2.395 and her last public act was to deliver it with a feeble hand 
to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a 
coalition between all sections of public men who were 
attached to the Protestant succession. George the First 
was proclaimed without opposition. A Council, in which 

2400 the leading Whis:s had seats, took the direction of affairs 



128 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

till the new King should arrive. The first act of the Lords 
Justices was to appoint Addison their secretary. 

There is an idle tradition that he was directed to prepare 
a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy himself as to 

2405 the style of this composition, and that the Lords Justices 
called in a clerk who at once did Avhat was wanted. It is 
not strange that a story so flattering to mediocrity should 
be popular ; and we are sorry to deprive dunces of their 
consolation. But the truth must be told. It was well 

2410 observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of 
these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any 
official document, affected wit or eloquence, and that his 
despatches are, without exception, remarkable for unpre- 
tending simplicity. Every body who knows with what ease 

2415 Addison's finest essays were produced must be convinced 
that, if well turned phrases had been wanted, he would 
have had no difficulty in finding them. We are, however, 
inclined to believe, that the story is not absolutely without 
a foundation. It may well be that Addison did not know, 

2420 till he had consulted experienced clerks Avho remembered 
the times when William the Third Avas absent on the (Con- 
tinent, in what form a letter from tlie Council of Regency 
to the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely 
that the ablest statesmen of our time. Lord John llussell, 

2425 Sir Robert Feel, Lord Palmerston, for example, would, in 
similar circumstances, be found quite as ignorant. Every 
office has some little mysteries which the dullest man may 
learn with a little attention, and Avhich the greatest man 
cannot possibly know by intuition. One paper must be 

2430 signed by the chief of the department ; another by his 
deputy; to a third the royal sign manual is necessary. 
One communication is to be registered, and another is not. 
One sentence must be in black ink and another in red ink. 
If the ablest Secretary for Ireland were moved to the India 

24.").'') Board, if the ablest President of the India Board were 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 129 

moved to the War Office, he would require instruction on 
points like these ; and we do not doubt that Addison re- 
quired such instruction when he became, for the first time, 
Secretary to the Lords Justices. 

2440 George the First took possession of his kingdom without 
opposition. A new ministry was formed, and a new Parlia- 
ment favourable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland Avas 
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison again 
Avent to Dublin as Chief Secretary. 

2445 At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much specula- 
tion about the way in which the Dean and the Secretary 
would behave towards each other. The relations which 
existed between these remarkable men form an interesting 
and pleasing portion of literary history. They had early 

2450 attached themselves to the same political party and to the 
same patrons. While Anne's Whig ministry was in power, 
the visits of Swift to London and the official residence of 
Addison in Ireland had given them opportunities of know- 
ing each other. They Avere the tAvo shrewdest observers of 

2455 their age. But their observations on each other had led 
them to favourable conclusions. SAvift did full justice to 
the rare poAvers of conversation Avhich Avere latent under 
the bashful deportment of Addison. Addison, on the other 
hand, discerned much good nature under the severe look 

2460 and manner of SAvift ; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and 
the Swift of 1738 were tAvo very different men. 

But the paths of the tAvo friends diverged Avidely. The 
Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. They 
praised SAvift, asked him to dinner, and did nothing more 

24(35 for him. His profession laid them under a difficulty. In 
the State they could not promote him ; and they had reason 
to fear that, by bestoAving preferment in the Church on the 
author of the Tale of a Tub, they might give scandal to the 
public, Avhich had no high opinion of their orthodoxy. He 

2470 did not make fair alloAvance for the difficulties Avhich pre- 



130 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

vented Halifax and Somers from serving him, thought him- 
self an ill used man, sacrificed honour and consistency to 
revenge, joined the Tories, and became their most formi- 
dable chauipion. He soon found, however, that his old 

2475 friends were less to blame than he had supposed. The 
dislike with Avhich the Queen aud the heads of the Church 
regarded him was insurmountable ; and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that he obtained an ecclesiastical dignity 
of no great value, on condition of fixing his residence in a 

2480 country which he detested. 

Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed a 
quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Addison. They 
at length ceased altogether to see each other. Yet there 
was between them a tacit compact like that between the 

2485 hereditar}' guests in the Diad. 

""E7xea 5' dXX'^Xwi' dXeJifxeOa Kai di ofiiXov 
IloXXot ficv yap e/J-oi TpQes /vXetrot t eiriKovpOL : 
Kreiveiv, Sv k€ 6f6s ye iropTj Kal Trocral Kixeiu, 
IloXXoi 5' a5 (Toi 'Axatot, ivalpefiev, 6v /ce dvvriae." 

2490 It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and 
insulted nobody, shoidd not have calumniated or insulted 
Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom neither 
genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed 
to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in 

2495 attacking old friends, should have shown so much respect 
and tenderness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House 
of Hanover had secured in England the liberties of the 
people, and in Ireland the dominion of the Protestant caste. 

2500 To that caste Swift was more odious than any other man. 
He was hooted and even pelted in the streets of Dublin ; 
and could not venture to ride along the Strand for his health 
without the attendance of armed servants. Many whom he 
had formerly served now libelled and insulted him. At 

2505 this time Addison arrived. He had been advised not to 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 131 

show the smallest civility to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He 
had answered, with admirable spirit, that it might be neces- 
sary for men whose fidelity to their party was snspected to 
hold no intercourse with political opponents ; but that one 

2510 who had been a steady Whig in the worst times might ven- 
ture, when the good cause was triumphant, to shake hands 
with an old friend who was one of the vanquished Tories. 
His kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly wounded 
spirit of Swift ; and the two great satirists resumed their 

2515 habits of friendly intercourse. 

Those associates of Addison whose political opinions 
agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tickell 
with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative 
place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was pro- 

2520vided for in England. Steele had injured himself so much 
by his eccentricity and perverseness that he obtained but a 
very small part of what he thought his due. He was, how- 
ever, knighted ; he had a place in the household ; and he 
subsequently received other marks of favour from the court. 

2525 Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he 
quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. 
In the same year his comedy of the Drummer was brought 
on the stage. The name of the author was not announced ; 
the piece was coldly received ; and some critics have ex- 

2530 pressed a doubt whether it were really Addison's. To us 
the evidence, both external and internal, seems decisive. 
It is not in Addison's best manner ; but it contains numer- 
ous passages which no other writer known to us could have 
produced. It was again performed after Addison's death, 

2535 and, being known to be his, was loudly applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1715, while the rebellion 
was still raging in Scotland, Addison published the first 
number of a paper called the Freeholder. Among his 
political works the Freeholder is entitled to the first place. 

2540 Even in the Spectator there are few serious papers nobler 



132 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

than tlie character of his friend Lord Soniers, and certainly 
no satirical papers superior to those in which the Tory fox- 
hunter is introduced. This (diaracter is the original of 
Squire "Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and 

2545 with a delicacy of which Fielding was altogether destitute. 
As none of Addison's works exhibits stronger marks of his 
genius than the Freeholder, so none does more honour to 
his moral character. It is difficult to extol too highly the 
candour and humanity of a political writer, whom even the 

2550 excitement of civil war cannot hurry into unseemly violence. 
Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Tory- 
ism. The High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayo- 
nets in order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and 
traitors pursued by the messengers of the Government had 

2555 been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet the 
admonition which, even under such circumstances, Addison 
addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, 
and even affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his 
heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His 

2560 f oxhunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart 
a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of 
the King. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's modera- 
tion, and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was 
excellently written, complained that the ministry played on 

25G5a lute when it was necessary to blow the trumpet. He 
accordingly determined to execute a flourish after his own 
fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation 
by means of a paper called the Towai Talk, which is now as 
utterly forgotten as his Englishman, as his Crisis, as his 

2570 Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his Reader, in short, 
as every thing he wrote without the help of. Addison. 

In the same year in which the Drummer was acted, and 
in which the first numbers of the Freeholder appeared, the 
estrangement of Pope and Addison became complete. Addi- 

2575 son had from the first seen that Tope was false and malevo- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 133 

lent, i^ope had discovered that Addison was jealous. The 
discovery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written 
the Rape of the Lock, in two cantos j without supernatural 
machinery. These two cantos had been loudly applauded, 

2580 and by none more loudly than by Addison. Then Pope 
thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, 
Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to interweave the 
Rosicrucian mythology with the original fabric. He asked 
Addison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it stood 

2585 was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not to run 

the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend 

it. Pope afterwards declared that this insidious counsel 

first opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it. 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most 

2590 ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great 
skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that 
Addison's advice was bad ? And if Addison's advice was 
bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad 
motives ? If a friend were to ask us whether we would 

2595 advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances 
were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dis- 
suade him from running such a risk. Even if he were so 
lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we should 
not admit that we had counselled him ill ; and we should 

2()00 certainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse 
us of having been actuated by malice. We think Addi- 
son's advice good advice. It rested on a sound principle, 
the result of long and wide experience. The general rule 
undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imagination 

2605 has been produced, it should not be recast. We cannot at 
this moment call to mind a single instance in which this 
rule has been transgressed with happy effect, except the 
instance of the Rape of the Lock. Tasso recast his Jeru- 
salem. Akenside recast his Pleasures of the Imagination, 

2(jioand his Epistle to Curio. Pope himself, emboldened no 



134 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

dovibt by the success with which he had expanded and 
reiuudelled the Kape of the Lock, made the same experi- 
ment on the Dunciad. All these attempts failed. Who 
was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be able to 

2()l5do what he could not himself do twice, and what nobody 
else had ever done ? 

Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why 
should we pronounce it dishonest ? Scott tells us that 
one of his best friends predicted the failure of Waverley. 

2G20 Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a sub- 
ject as Faust. Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from 
writing the History of Charles the Fifth. Nay, Pope him- 
self was one of those who prophesied that Cato would never 
succeed on the stage, and advised Addison to print it with- 

2625 out risking a representation. But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, 
Addison, had the good sense and generosity to give their 
advisers credit for the best intentions. Pope's heart was 
not of the same kind with theirs. 

In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, 

2(;3ohe met Addison at a coffeehouse. Phillipps and Badgell 
were there; but their sovereign got rid of them, and asked 
Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison said 
that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. 
" Tickell," he said, " translated some time ago the first book 

2(535 of the Iliad. I have promised to look it over and correct 
it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours ; for that would be 
double dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that 
his second book might have the advantage of Addison's 
revision. Addison readily agreed, looked over the second 

2640 book, and sent it back with warm commendations. 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after 
this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was earnestly 
disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not go on with 
the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to powers which 

2645 he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 135 

said, ill publisliing this specimen was to bespeak the favour 
of the public to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he had 
made some progress. 

Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced 

2650 both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's had 
more of the original. The town gave a decided preference 
to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a 
question of precedence. ISTeitlier of the rivals can be said 
to have translated the Iliad, unless, indeed, the word trans- 

2655 lation be used in the sense which it bears in the Midsummer 
x^ight's Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance with 
an ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, 
" Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art translated." In 
this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope or 

26GoTickell may very properly exclaim, ''Bless thee! Homer; 
thou art translated indeed." 

Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking that 
no man in Addison's situation could have acted more fairly 
and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards Tickell, than he 

2665 appears to have done. But an odious suspicion had sprung 
up in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon firmly 
believed, that there was a deep conspiracy against his fame 
and his fortunes. The work on which he had staked* his 
reputation Avas to be depreciated. The subscription, on 

2670 which rested his hopes of a competence, was to be defeated. 
With this vicAv Addison had made a rival translation: 
Tickell had consented to father it ; and the wits of Button's 
had united to puff it. 

Is there any external evidence to support this grave accu- 

2675 sation ? The answer is short. There is absolutely none. 

Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison 

to be the author of this version ? Was it a work which 

Tickell was incapable of producing ? Surely not. Tickell 

was a Pellow of a College at Oxford, and must be supposed 

26S0 to have been able to construe the Iliad ; and he was a better 



136 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

versifier than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pre- 
tended to have discovered any turns of expression peculiar 
to Addison. Had such turns of expression been discovered, 
they would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addi- 

2685 son to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned that he 
had done. 

Is there any thing in the character of the accused per- 
sons which makes the accusation probable ? We answer 
confidently — nothing. Tickell was long after this time 

2G90 described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. 
Addison had been, during many years, before the public. 
Literary rivals, political opponents, had kept their eyes on 
him. But neither envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, 
had ever imputed to him a single deviation from the laws 

269.5 of honour and of social morality. Had he been indeed a 
man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to base 
and wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, 
would his vices have remained latent so long ? He was a 
writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe ? He was 

2700 a writer of comedy: had he not done ample justice to Gon- 
greve, and given valuable help to Steele ? He was a pam- 
phleteer : have not his good nature and generosity been 
acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary 
in politics ? 

2705 That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems 
to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been 
guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But 
that these two men should have conspired together to com- 
mit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. 

2710 All that is known to us of their intercourse tends to prove, 
that it was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. 
These are some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth 
his sorrow over the coffin of Addison : 

" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
2715 A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 137 

Oh, if sonietimes thy spotless form descend, 
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 
When pain distresses, or when jjleasure charms, 
2720 In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart. 

And turn from ill a fi'ail and feeble heart ; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before. 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 

In what words, we should like to know, did this guardian 

2725 genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such as the -Editor 
of the Satirist would hardly dare to propose to the Editor 
of the Age ? 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which 
he knew to be false. We have not the smallest doubt that 

2730 he believed it to be true; and the evidence on which he 
believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own life 
was one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as 
that of which he suspected Addison and Tickell. He was 
all stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to save 

2735 himself from the consequences of injury and insult by 
lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He pub- 
lished a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos ; he was taxed 
with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a 
lampoon on Aaron Hill; he was taxed with it; and he 

2740 lied and equivocated. He published a still fouler lampoon 
on Lady Mary Wortley Montague ; he was taxed with it ; 
and he lied with more than usual effrontery and vehemence. 
He puffed himself and abused his enemies under feigned 
names. He robbed himself of his- own letters, and then 

2745 raised the hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of 
malignity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there were 
frauds which he seems to have committed from love of 
fraud alone. He had a habit of stratagem, a pleasure in 
outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object 

2750 might be, the indirect road to it was that which he pre- 
ferred. Eor Bolingbroke, Pope undoubtedly felt as much 



138 LIFE ANT) WETTINGS OF ADDISON 

love and veneration as it was in liis nature to feel for any 
Ininian being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was 
discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of 

2755 artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to 
Bolingbroke. 

Nothing was more natnral than that snch a man as this 
should attribute to others that which he felt within himself. 
A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly given to 

27(i0 him. 'He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of con- 
duct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is pursued towards 
him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile 
intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is 
vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, and wants none, 

27(>5 except those which he carries in his own bosom. 

Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison 
to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be known 
with certainty. We have only Pope's story, which runs 
thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflections, 

2770 which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflections 
were, and whether they were reflections of which he had 
a right to complain, we have now no means of deciding. 
The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, who 
regarded Addison with the feelings with which such lads 

2775 generally regard their best friends, told Pope, truly or 
falsely, that this pamphlet had been written by Addison's 
direction. When we consider what a tendency stories have 
to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another 
honest man, and when we consider that to the name of 

2780 honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of Warwick had a 
claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance to 
this anecdote. 

It is certain, however, that Poj^e was furious. He had 
already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In his 

2785 anger he turned this prose into the brilliant and energetic 
lines which every body knows by heart, or ought to knoAV 



LIFE AND WliiriNGS OF ADDISOJS 139 

by heart, and sent them to Adilisou. One charge which 
Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without 
foundation. Addison was, we are inclined to believe, too 

2790 fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of the 
other imputations which these famous lines are intended to 
convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and 
some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the 
habit of " damning w4th faint praise " appears from innu- 

2795 merable passages in his Avritings, and from none more than 
from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not 
merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made 
the fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends, as 
" so obliging that he ne'er obliged." 

2800 That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we 
cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the weak- 
nesses with which he Avas reproached, is highly probable. 
But his heart, Ave firmly believe, acquitted him of the 
gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. 

2805 As a satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's 
match ; and he Avo;dd have been at no loss for topics. A 
distorted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more dis- 
torted and diseased mind; spite and envy thinly disguised 
by sentiments as benevolent and noble as those Avhich Sir 

2810 Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Surface ; a feeble sickly 
licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images ; 
these were things which a genius less powerful than that to 
which we oAve the Spectator could easily have held up to the 
mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had, moreover, at 

2815 his command other means, of vengeance Avhich a bad man 
Avould not have scrupled to use. He Avas poAverful in the 
state. Pope Avas a Catholic; and, in those times, a minis- 
ter Avould have found it easy to harass the most innocent 
Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope, near tAVcnty 

2820 years later, said that ''through the lenity of the government 
alone he could live Avith comfort." '' Consider," he exclaimed, 



140 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

" the injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a 
private person, under penal laws and many other disadvan- 
tages." It is pleasing to reflect that the only revenge which 

2825 Addison took Avas to insert in the Freeholder a warm en- 
comium on the translation of the Iliad, and to exhort all 
lovers of learning to put down their names as subscribers. 
There could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already 
published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 

2830 much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From 
that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by 
Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friendship was, 
of course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of "Warwick to play 

2835 the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may 
have been his dislike of the marriage which was about to 
take place between his mother and Addison. The Countess 
Dowager, a daughter of the old and honourable family of 
the Myddletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country 

28-10 but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland House. 
Addison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a small 
dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now 
a district of London, and Holland House may be called a 
town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George the 

2845 First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered between green 
hedges and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensing- 
ton almost to the shore of the Tliames. Addison and Lady 
Warwick were country neighbours, and became intimate 
friends. The great wit and scholar tried to allure the 

2850 young Lord from the fashionable amusements of beating 
watchmen, breaking windows, and rolling women in hogs- 
heads down Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and the 
practice of virtue. These well-meant exertions did little 
good, however, either to the disciple or to the master. 

2855 Lord Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addison fell in love. 
The mature beauty of the Countess has been celebrated by 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 141 

poets in language which, after a very large allowance has 
been made for flattery, would lead us to believe that she 
was a fine woman ; and her rank doubtless heightened her 

2860 attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of the 
lover appear to have risen and fallen with the fortunes of 
his party. His attachment was at length matter of such 
notoriety that, when he visited Ireland for the last time, 
Eowe addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe of 

2865 Holland House. It strikes us as a little strange that, in 
these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas, a name 
of singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross 
St. George's Channel. 

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able 

2870 to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to expect 
preferment even higher than that which he had attained. 
He had inherited the fortune of a brother who died Gov- 
ernor of Madras. He had purchased an estate in War- 
wickshire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very 

2875 tolerable verse by one of the neighbouring squires, the 
poetical foxhunter, William Somervile. In August 1716, 
the newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, 
famous for many excellent works l)oth in verse and prose, 
had espoused the ( Jountess Dowager of Warwick. 

2880 He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house which 
can boast of a greater number of inmates distinguished in 
political and literary history than any other private dwell- 
ing in England. His portrait still hangs there. The fea- 
tures are pleasing; the complexion is remarkably fair; 

2885 but, in the expression, we trace rather the gentleness of his 
disposition than the force and keenness of his intellect. 

Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil 
greatness. The Whig Government had, during some time, 
been torn by internal dissensions. Lord Townshend led one 

281)0 section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. At length, 
in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend 



142 LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON 

retired from office, and was accompanied by Walpole and 
Cowper. Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct the Minis- 
try ; and Addison was appointed Secretary of State. It is 

2895 certain that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at 
first declined by him. Men equally versed in official busi- 
ness might easily have been found; and his colleagues 
knew that they could not expect assistance from him in 
debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his 

'Jii(M) stainless probity, and to his literary fau^e. 

But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his 
health began to fail. From one serious attack he recovered 
in the autumn ; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin 
verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who Avas 

2!»05then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took 
place ; and, in the following spring, Addison was prevented 
by a severe asthma from discharging the duties of his post. 
He resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs, a 
young man whose natural parts, though little improved by 

2910 cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful person 
and winning manners had made him generally acceptable 
in society, and who, if he had lived, would probably have 
been the most formidable of all the rivals of Walpole. 

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The ^Ministers, there- 

2915 fore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pension of 
fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what form this pension 
Avas given we are not told by the biographers, and have not 
time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not 
vacate his seat in the House of Commons. 

2920 Rest of mind and body seemed to have re-established his 
health ; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for having 
set him free both from his office and from his asthma. Many 
years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works, a 
tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, 

2925 a treatise on the Evidences of Christianity. Of this last 
l)erformance, a part, which we could well spare, has come 
down to us. 



LIFE AND WKITIXGS OF ADDISON 143 

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradually pre- 
vailed against all the resources of medicine. It is melancholy 
to think that the last months of such a life should have 

2930 been overclouded both by domestic and by political vexa- 
tions. A tradition which began early, which has been gener- 
ally received, and to which we have nothing to oppose, has 
represented his wife as an arrogant and imperious w.oman. 
It is said that, till his health failed him, he was glad to 

2935 escape from the Countess Dowager and her magnificent din- 
ing room, blazing with the gilded devices of the House of 
Rich, to some tavern where he could enjoy a laugh, a talk 
about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the 
friends of his happier days. All those friends, however, 

2940 were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradu- 
ally estranged by various causes. He considered himself as 
one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his politi- 
cal principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was 
triumphant, a large compensation for what he had suffered 

2945 when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a very dif- 
ferent view of his claims. They thought that he had, by 
his own petulance and folly, brought them as well as him- 
self into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect 
him, doled out favours to liim Avith a sparing hand. It was 

2950 natural that he should be angry with them, and especially 
angry with Addison. Rut what above all seems to have 
disturbed Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell, who, 
at thirty, was made by Addison Undersecretary of State ; 
while the editor of the Tatler and Spectator, the author of 

2955 the Crisis, the member for Stockbridge who had been per- 
secuted for firm adherence to the Honse of Hanover, was, 
at near fifty, forced, after many solicitations and com- 
plaints, to content himself with a share in the patent of 
Drury Lane theatre. Steele himself says in his celebrated 

2900 Letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tick- 
ell, "incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen;" 



144 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

and every thing seems to indicate that, of those resentful 
gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he con- 

2965 sidered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel 
arose. The Whig party, already divided against itself, was 
rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limiting the 
number of Peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of 
Somerset, first in rank of all the nobles whose religion 

2970 permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible 
author of the measure. Bnt it Avas supported, and, in 
truth, devised, by the Prime Minister. 

We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious, and 
we fear that the motives Avhich induced Sunderland to frame 

2975 it were not honourable to him. But we cannot deny that it 
was supported by many of the best and wisest men of that 
age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, 
within the memory of the generation then in the vigour of 
life, been so grossly abused, that it was still regarded with 

2980 a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation of the House 
of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called immod- 
erate. The particular prerogative of creating peers had, in 
the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen 
Anne's last ministry; and even the Tories admitted that 

2985 her Majesty, in swamping, as it has since been called, the 
Upper House, had done what only an extreme case could 
justify. The theory of the English constitution, according 
to many high authorities, was that three independent pow- 
ers, the sovereign, the nobility, and the commons, ought 

2990 constantly to act as checks on each other. If this theory 
were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of these 
powers under the absolute control of the other two, was 
absurd. But if the number of peers were unlimited, it 
could not well be denied that the Upper House was under 

2995 the absolute control of the Crown and the Commons, and 
was indebted only to their moderation for any power which 
it might be suffered to retain. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 145 

Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the 
Ministers. Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, vehe- 

SOOOmently attacked the Bill. Sunderland called for help on 
Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper called 
the Old Whig, he answered, and indeed refuted, Steele's 
arguments. It seems to us that the premises of both the 
controversialists were unsound, that, on those premises, 

3005 Addison reasoned Avell and Steele ill, and that conse- 
quently Addison brought out a false conclusion, while 
Steele blundered upon the truth. In style, in wit, and in 
politeness, Addison maintained his superiority, though the 
Old Whig is by no means one of his happiest performances. 

3010 At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the 
laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot him- 
self as to throw an odious imputation on the morals of the 
chiefs of the administration. Addison replied with severity, 
but, in our opinion, with less severity than was due to so 

3015 grave an offence against morality and decorum ; nor did he, 
in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of good 
taste and good breeding. One calumny which has been 
often repeated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to 
expose. It is asserted in the Biographia Britannica, that 

3020 Addison designated Steele as " little Dicky." This asser- 
tion Avas repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old 
Whig, and was therefore excusable. It has also been re- 
peated by Miss Aikin, who has seen the Old Whig, and for 
whom therefore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that 

3025 the words "little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that 
Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the 
words " little Isaac " occur in the Duenna, and that New- 
ton's name w^as Isaac. But we confidently affirm that 
Addison's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, than 

3030 Sheridan's little Isaac with Kewton. If we apply the words 
"little Dicky" to Steele, we deprive a very lively and 
ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, but of all its 



146 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISUN 

lueaniiig. Little Dicky was the uickuame of Henry Norris, 
an actor of remarkably small stature, but of great humour, 

3035 who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, in. 
Dryclen's Spanish Friar. ^ 

The merited reproof Avhich Steele had received, though 
softened by some kind and courteous expressions, galled 
hina bitterly. He replied with little force and great acri- 

3040 mony ; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast 
hastening to his grave ; and had, we may well suppose, 
little disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. 
His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up long 
and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope, dis- 

3045 missed his physicians, and calmly i)repared himself to die. 
His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedi- 
cated them a very few days before his death to Craggs, in a 
letter written with the sweet and graceful eloquence of a Sat- 
urday's Spectator. In this, his last composition, he alluded 

3050 to his aj^proaching end in words so manly, so cheerful, and 
so tender, that it is difficult to read them without tears. At 
the same time he earnestly recommended the interests of 
Tickell to the care of Craggs. 

Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication 

3055 was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, avIio was then living- 

1 We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever have been 
misunderstood is unintelligible to us. 

"But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, 
whom be represents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown, by losing 
this prerogative, would be less able to protect them against the power of 
a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing when the Spauisli Friar repre- 
sents little Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that 
was able to fright him out of his wits with a single frown? This Gomez, 
says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the Devil being 
strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado, and buffet on buffet, 
which the poor Colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian 
patience. The improbability of the fact never fails to raise mirth in the 
audience : and one may venture to answer for a British House of Com- 
mons, if we may guess from its conduct hitherto, that it will scarce be 
citlu'r so tame or so weak as our aulhor suijposes." 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 147 

by Ids wits about town, to come to Holland House. Gay 
went and was received with great kindness. To liis amaze- 
ment his forgiveness was im})lore(l by the dying man. 
Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of mankind, 

30()0 could not imagine what he had to forgive. There was, how- 
ever, some wrong, the remembrance of which weighed on 
Addison's mind, and which he declared himself anxious to 
repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion ; and the 
parting was doubtless a friendly one on both sides. Gay 

3065 supposed that some plan to serve him had been in agitation 
at Court, and had been frustrated by Addison's influence. 
Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to 
the royal family. But in the Queen's days he had been the 
eulogist of Bolingbroke, and was still connected with many 

3070 Tories. It is not strange that Addison, while heated by con- 
flict, should have thought himself justified in obstructing 
the preferment of one whom he might regard as a political 
enemy. Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his 
whole life, and earnestly scrutinising all his motives, he 

3075 should think that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous 
part, in using his power against a distressed man of letters, 
who was as harmless and as helpless as a child. 

One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It 
appears that Addison, on his deathbed, called himself to a 

3080 strict account, and was not at ease till he had asked pardon 
for an injury which it was not even suspected that he had 
committed, for an injury which would have caused disquiet 
only to a very tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable 
to infer that, if he had really been guilty of forming a base 

3085 conspiracy against the fame and fortunes of a rival, he 
would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime ? 
But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and evidence 
for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evidence 
for the accusation. 

3090 The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. His 



148 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

interview with his step-son is universally known. " See/' 
he said, " how a Christian can die." The piety of Addison 
was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The feel- 
ing which predominates in all his devotional writings is 

3095 gratitude. God was to him the all-wise and all-powerful 
friend who had watched over his cradle with more than 
maternal tenderness ; who had listened to his cries before 
they could form themselves in prayer ; who had preserved 
his youth from the snares of vice ; who had made his cup 

3100 run over with worldly blessings; who had doubled the 
value of those blessings, by bestowing a thankful heart to 
enjoy them, and dear friends to partake them ; who had 
rebuked the waves of the Ligurian gulf, had purified the 
autumnal air of the Campagna, and had restrained the 

3105 avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favourite 
was that which represents the Ruler of all things under the 
endearing image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the 
flock safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows 
well watered and rich with herbage. On that goodness to 

3110 which he ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied in 
the hour of death with the love which casteth out fear. He 
died on the seventeenth of June 1719. He had just entered 
on his forty-eighth year. 

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was 

3115 borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir 
sung a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories 
who had loved and honoured the most accomplished of the 
Whigs, met the corpse, and led the procession by torch- 
light, round the shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of 

3120 the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. On 
the north side of that Chapel, in the vault of the House of 
Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of 
Montague. Yet a few months; and the same mourners 
passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem 

3125 was again chanted. The same vault was again opened ; 



LIFE AND WEITINGS OF ADDISON 149 

and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of 
Addison. 

Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; but 
one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend 

3130 in an elegy which would do honour to the greatest name in 
our literature, and which unites the energy and magnifi- 
cence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. 
This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addi- 
son's works, which was published, in 1721, by subscription. 

3135 The names of the subscribers proved how widely his fame 
had been spread. That his countrymen should be eager to 
possess his writings, even in a costly form, is not wonderful. 
But it is wonderful that, though English literature was then 
little studied on the Continent, Spanish Grandees, Italian 

3140 Prelates, Marshals of France, should be found in the list. 
Among the most remarkable names are those of the Queen 
of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tus- 
cany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of 
the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal 

3145 Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though emi- 
nently beautiful, is in some important points defective ; nor, 
indeed, do we yet possess a complete collection of Addi- 
son's writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, 

3150 nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have 
thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his 
name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till three 
generations had laughed and Avept over his pages that the 
omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, 

3155 in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in 
Poets' Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, 
clad in his dressing gown, and freed from his wig, stepping 
from his parlour at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with 
the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves of Hilpa 

3iG0and Shalum, just finished for the next day's Spectator, in 



150 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 

his hand. Such a mark of national respect Avas due to the 
unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the 
master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate 
painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the 
3105 great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without 
abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great 
social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a 
long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been 
led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism. 



NOTES ON THE ESSAY ON JVIILTON 

[The figures refer to lines as indicated in the margin of the text] 

Charles R. Sumner was at this time chaplain, historiographer, 
and librarian to George IV. 

6 Secretary. See biographical sketch of Milton in the Introduc- 

tion, p. xxxi. 
Popish trials, tlie trials of various Roman Catholics in 1678- 
1679 for conspiring to kill Charles II. and place his brother 
James upon the throne. The alleged conspiracy was a pure 
invention by the notorious Titus Gates, but about thirty- 
five people were executed for their supposed connection 
with it. 

7 the Rye-house Plot, a plot by some of the more desperate of 

the AVhigs in 1682-168o to kill Charles II. and his brother, 
and to make the Duke of Monmouth king. IL was betrayed, 
and several of the Whig leaders were executed for their real 
or supposed connection with it. 

11 Wood and Toland. Anthony a AVood and John Toland were 

among the first biographers of Milton, drawing their infor- 
mation at first hand from his surviving friends and 
I'elatives. 
the Restoration, of Charles II. to the English throne in 1660. 
The word is often used to designate the period of English 
history between the return of Charles-II. and the Revolution 
of 1688. 

12 Cyriac Skinner, grandson of the famoiis English judge. Sir 

Edward Coke, and an intimate friend of Milton, who 
addressed to him two sonnets (XXI. and XXII.). 
17 the Oxford Parliament, summoned by Charles II. in 1681 to 
meet at Gxford in the hope that the loyalty of the Uni- 
versity might overawe the Whigs. Their turbulence and 
disloyalty disgusted the country, and immediately after the 
dissolution of this rurlianient a reaction began which en- 
131 



152 :xoTES 

abled Charles to treat them with great severity. This is 
the " persecution " mentioned in the preceding line. 

38 our academical Pharisees. Macaulay, though a fine classical 
scholar, was ratlier inclined to sneer at the favorite English 
practice of Greek and Latin composition in prose and verse 
in imitation of classical mastei'pieces. lie points out in 
this passage that Milton's Latin style was for use rather 
than for show. 

40 Ciceronian. Cicero's style was so excellent that his name has 
furnished an adjective for perfect Latin prose. 

44 This line is quoted from Milton's eleventh sonnet. Quintilian 
was a fastidious Roman rhetorician. 

49 Denham, Sir John Denham, an English poet of the seven- 
teenth century, now little read. 
Cowley, Abraham Cowley, an English poet contemporary 
with Denham. He was immensely admired in his day, and 
was considered the equal of the great authoi-s of classical 
antiquity. Denham, in a poem on his death, says : — 

Horace's wit, and Virgil's state, 

He did not steal, but emulate! 

And when he would lil^e them appear, 

Their garb, but not tlieir clothes, did wear. 

Macaulay means by this that Milton's Latin style was like 
enough to that of the classics to pass nuister as of their 
fashion, but not so carefully imitated from theirs as to 
seem an exact copy. 
60 Arianism. Arius was a priest of the fourtli century. lie 
declared that Christ was not the equal of God the Father, 
but was begotten of, or created by, him before the crea- 
tion of the world. Milton evidently shared this belief, as 
may be seen by reference to the fifth chapter of his Trea- 
tise on Christian Doctrine. 
his theory on the subject of polygamy. INIilton based his 
whole system of belief on texts drawn from the Bible. 
Since he found that many of the Old Testament saints 
were permitted, or even commanded, to take more than 
one wife, and since there was no express prohibition of this 
practice in the New Testament, he held that polygamy was 
perfectly lawful, and that those who forbade it as a crime 



MILTON 153 

were restricting Christian liberty. According to liis 
nephew's account, Milton at one time thought of marrying 
a Miss Davis, while his runaway wife was at her mother's 
house. 

65 the nature of the Deity. Milton held that we can only con- 
ceive of God as he has revealed himself to us in the Bible, 
and, consequently, since he is tiiere represented as grieving, 
repenting, fearing, etc., we must attribute to him these 
human feelings ; and since in the Bible the members and 
form of man are habitually assigned to God, we ought thus 
to think of him, of course withovit any of the imperfec- 
tions and weaknesses of men. 
the eternity of matter. INIilton did not believe that God 
created the world out of nothing. He thought that God 
created or formed all things out of an original matter, 
which itself proceeded from God. He held that no created 
thing could be finally annihilated. 
the observation of the Sabbath. Milton held that the com- 
numd to keep the Sabbath was given only to the Jews, that 
this command was not binding upon Christians, and that 
no one day is appointed for divine worship in preference to 
another. 

74 the Defensio Populi, Milton's once famous, but now neglected 
defence of the English people for having beheaded their 
king. See the biograiihical sketch of Milton in the Intro- 
duction, p. xxxi. 

84 Capuchins, a minor order of friars who get their name from 
the hood, or cowl (Italian cappuccio), which they wear. 

97 Martyr of English liberty. It is not quite clear what Macaulay 
means by this. ^lilton suffered no punishment whatever 
for the part he took in the Civil War. The reference may , . 
be to the loss of his eyesight in his country's defence. cv^t^tJUV ' 
121 Johnson, Dr. Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets. 

154 Mrs. Marcet, a well-known writer of popular books on scien- 

tific subjects, very popular in Macaulay's day. Her best- 
known work is the Conversations on Political Economy, to 
which he here refers. 

155 Montagu, Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, a leading states- 

man in the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne. He 



1 r>4 NOTES 

was particularly rlistingnislied for his financial abilities. 
The establishment of the Bank of i^ngland was due to hiiu. 
Walpole, Sir Robert Walpole, the great Prime INIinister of 
George T. and George II., "the first minister since the 
Restoration who made a special study of finance and 
commerce." 
158 Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer of the law of gravi- 
tation, the most distinguished mathematician of his day. 

184 Shaftesbury, Antony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftes- 

bury, a philosopher and moralist of the early eighteenth 
century. He held that men had a special faculty for 
distinguishing between right and wrong. This faculty he 
named the " moral sense." 

185 Helvetius, a French philosopher of the middle of the eigh- 

teenth century. He held that there was no absolute differ- 
ence between right and wrong, and that self-interest, 
founded on the love of pleasure and the fear of pain, was 
the only motive for human action. 

190 Niobe, a queen in Greek mythology whose children were slain 
by Apollo and Diana. She moiirned so much for them 
that she was changed into a rock from which a fountain 
gushed forth. Shakespeare has made the phrase "like 
Niobe, all tears " familiar to all. 
Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, always rejiresented as rosy 

and blushing. 
Mandeville, Bernard de Mandeville, a Dutch physician who 
settled in London about the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. He is best known as the author of The Fable of the 
Bees, a half -humorous, half-philosophical collection, con- 
sisting of the doggerel poem, " The Grumbling Hive." 
" Remarks on the Poem," and an " Inquiry into the Origin 
of ^Nloral Virtue." He maintained the paradox that 
private vices, such as luxury, etc., were public benefits. 
The work was misunderstood as an attack on religion and 
morality, and was condemned to be burnt by the hang- 
man. 

196 lago, a character in Othello, one of the most striking examples 
of Shakespeare's art in portraying human character. 

209 The greatest of poets : Shakespeare. The quotation is from 



MILTON 155 

the Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, Sc. 1. In the same 
speech occur the words " the poet's eye iu a fine frenzy 
rolling," which Macaulay refers to in the following lines. 

230 sensibility. This word has here its eighteenth century mean- 
ing of sensitiveness. 

250 Greek Rhapsodists, professional reciters of poetry, especially 
of the Iliad and the Odijsseij. 

254 Ancient bards of Wales and Germany. In Scott's novel, the 
Betrothed (Chap. II.), there is a good example of the influ- 
ence of a Welsh singer upon his hearers. A Roman ambas- 
sador to the court of Attila has left an account of how the 
Gothic minstrels at the banquet moved the young men to 
madness and the old men to tears by their songs of old 
wai's and victories. 

281 We have seen in our own time, etc. The reference is probably 
to Wordsworth, whose attempt to retuiui to the original 
simplicity of poetry had not yet (in 1825) been well 
received by the public. 

289 Rabbinical literature, the writings of the Rabbis, Jewish 
theologians. 

294 Petrarch, Francesco Petrarca, a famous Italian poet of the 
fourteenth century, the author of a number of Latin poems 
which were immensely admired in their day. 

300 The authority of Johnson. Dr. Johnson in his " Life of Cow- 
ley " (Lives of the Poets) says: "If the Latin performances 
of Cowley and Milton be compared, the advantage seems 
to lie on the side of Cowley. Milton is generally content 
to express the thoughts of the ancients in their language ; 
Cowley, without much loss of purity or elegance, accom- 
modates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions." 
The fact that Cowley was a Cavalier, Milton a Puritan 
poet, no doubt had something to do with Dr. Johnson's 
preference. 

302 Augustan, pertaining to the time of Augustus, the first Roman 
emperor, under whom Virgil, Horace, and Ovid flourished. 

311 The Epistle to Manso, a Latin poem by Milton, addressed to 
Manso, Marquis of Villa, an Italian nobleman and patron 
of letters, who had shown ^lilton much kindness on his 
visit to Naples. 



156 NOTES 

321 These lines are quoted from Paradise Lost, IV, 11. 551-554:. 

376 Cassitn. The reference is, of course, to the story oi Ali Baba 
and the Forty Thieves, which we may fairly suppose to be 
one of the things which every schoolboy knows. 

379 Dryden, John Dryden, poet-laureate, 1670-1688. He was a 
great admirer of Paradise Lost, which he called " one of the 
greatest, most noble, and sublime poems which either this 
age or nation hath produced." In order to recommend it 
to the indifferent public, he turned it, with Milton's con- 
sent, into a sort of opera, changing Milton's blank verse 
into the favorite rhymed couplets of the day. The effect 
is almost ludicrous. 

424 Mr. Newberry, a bookseller and publisher contemporary with 
Dr. elolinson and Goldsmith. " He was the first to make 
the issue of books for children an important branch of 
the publishing business," and seems, from this reference 
of Macaulay's, to have been also the inventor of children's 
toys. 

429 Harold, the hero of Byron's best-known poem, Childe Harold. 
He is supposed to represent Byron himself. 

438 the chorus. One of the characteristics which distinguishes 
the ancient from the modern drama, is the presence of a 
chorus, such as we find to-day in opera only. During the 
absence of the actors from the stage, the chorus performed 
stately dances and chanted long odes. 

442 .ffischylus, the first, and, according to Macaulay, the great- 
est, of the three Attic tragedians. 

447 Herodotus, the first of Greek historians. He wrote the account 
of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. 

452 Pindar, the greatest of Greek lyric poets, a contemporary of 
^T^schylus. 

458 Clyteemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. The address referred 

to contains a long account of her grief and fears during 
her husband's absence at the siege of Troy. 

459 seven Argive Chiefs, the seven (ireek chiefs in ^schylus's 

play who had sworn to replace the exiled Polynices on the 
tln'one of Tliebes. The description here referred to is a 
detailed account of their appearance and arms as they are 
about to attack the city. 



MILTON 157 

463 Sophocles, the second, and perhaps the greatest, of the Attic 

tragedians. 
468 Euripides, the third and last of the Attic tragedians. 

476 " sad Electra's poet," Euripides. Electra, the daughter of 

Agauienuion, helped her brother, Orestes, to take vengeance 
on his father's murderers. Euripides wrote a drama which 
bears her name, and she appears again in his Orestes. The 
phrase is quoted from Milton's eighth sonnet. 

477 the Queen of Fairy-land, Titania in Shakespeare's Midsummer 

Xight's Dream (Act. IV, Sc. 1). 

498 the Masque, a dramatic entertainment, in which music, danc- 
ing, gorgeous costumes, and elaborate scenery played an 
even greater part than the acting. It originated in Italy 
and was very popular in England under James I. and 
Charles I. For a moi'e detailed account see the Introduc- 
tion to Comus in The Minor Poems of Milton in this 
series. JNIilton's Comus is founded, not so much on the 
Italian Masque, as Macaulay asserts, as on Ben Jonson's 
development of that form of the drama. 

501 the Faithful Shepherdess, a lovely pastoral drama by John 
Fletcher, a younger contemporary of Shakespeare. It 
appeared about twenty-five years before INIilton wrote 
Com.us. 

503 Aminta, a pastoral drama by Tasso, the famous Italian poet. 

the Pastor Fido, a pastoral drama by Guarini, an Italian poet, 

the contemporary of Tasso, whose Aminta he imitated in 

this play. Both of them were imitated to a certain degree 

by Fletcher in the Faithful Shepherdess. 

515 May-day. As late as the middle of this century the chimney- 
sweeps of London kept up the old festival of May-day, 
going about in little bands of two or three in fantastic 
dresses, headed by a Queen of the May attired in glitter- 
ing spangles, and a Jack of the Green. 

531 Sir Henry Wotton, a diplomatist and poet of the early seven- 
teenth century. He ended his days as Provost of Eton. 
Milton visited him from Ilorton, and sent him a copy of 
Comus. In acknowledgment he wrote Milton a very com- 
plimentary letter, from which the quotation in the text is 
taken. 



158 NOTES 

532 the tragical part, that is the dramatic dialogue of Comus as 

opposed to the songs. 

533 Dorique, an old spelling for Doric, a Greek dialect in which 

the best of Greek pastoral poetry was written. Or the 
reference may be to the Doric, or Dorian, mode of music, a 
grave and sinqjle style of composition. 

5il Thyrsis, the assumed name of the Attendant Spirit in Comus. 

543-548 U'he first two lines are quoted from the epilogue to Comus; 
the others are a paraphrase of the same passage. Elysian, 
an adjective from Elysium, the old Greek heaven ; Hespe- 
rides, the daughters of Hesperus, and guardians of the 
magic tree in the Western island which bore tlie golden 
apples. 

555 Milton was mistaken, etc. We do not know that Milton pre- 
ferred Paradise Regained to Paradise Lost. All his nephew 
tells us is that he could not bear to hear it mentioned as 
inferior. 

566 The Divine Comedy, the great work of Dante, the first and 
noblest of Italian poets. It embraces the " Inferno," the 
'' Purgatorio," and the " Paradiso," and recounts the poet's 
journey through the three abodes of departed spirits. It is 
called a comedy on account of its happy ending. Dante w^as 
a citizen of Florence, the chief town of the district of 
Tuscany, where the purest Italian is spoken. By " Tuscan 
literature " (1. 570) Macaulay means Italian literature in 
general. 

573 hieroglyphics . . . picture-writing. In the hieroglyphics a figure, 
or picture, might stand for a word, a syllable, or even a 
single letter. Unless one knew the language one could make 
nothing out of the inscription. In the picture-writing of 
the Aztecs, on the other hand, the figure was always a direct 
representation of the thing meant. INIacaulay is again re- 
ferring to the allusive character of INIilton's poetry, whicli 
demands a certain knowledge on the reader's part, as com- 
pared with the simple directness of Dante. 

591 the sixth to the seventh circle. According to Dante Hell was 

divided into nine circles, one below the otlier, each reserved 
for the punishment of a particular sin. 

592 the Adige, a i-iver running southward through the mountains 



MTLTON 159 

of the Tyrol into Italy. Trent, a city on the Adige, in the 

southern Tyrol. 
593 Phlegethon, the river of fire falling from the seventh to the 

eighth circle of Hell. Aqua Cheta, a river of northern Italy, 

which falls in a torrent down a gorge in the Apennines near 

a Benedictine Abbey. 
596 Aries, a city in southeastern France, famous among other 

things for its long rows of Roman tombs. 

601 his other parts besides 

Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 
As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, 
******** 

or that sea-beast 

Leviathan, which God of all his works 

Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream, 

Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, 

The pilot of some night-foundered skiff, 

Deeming some island, oft, as sea-men tell, 

With fixed anchor in his scaly rind. 

Moors by his side under the lee, while night 

Invests the sea, and wished morn delays. 

So stretched out huge in length, the Arch-Fiend laj'. 

Paradise Lost I, 1. 194, etc. 

604 On the other side, Satan alarmed. 
Collecting all his might, dilated stood, 
Like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved: 

His stature reached the sky. 

Paradise Lost IV, 1. 985, etc. 

605 Teneriffe, the Peak of Teneriffe, a volcano on one of the 

Canary Islands, over twelve thousand feet high. 
Atlas, according to old Greek mythology, a Titan, condemned 
by Jove to support the sky on his shoulders. A chain of 
mountains in northeast Africa takes its name from him. 

608 Nimrod, mentioned in the Bible (Genesis x. 8-9) as a mighty 

hunter before the Lord. Dante represents him as a huge 
giant confined in the ninth circle of Hell. 

609 The ball of St. Peter's ; a mistranslation, for the " pine-cone," 

a famous cone of bronze once belonging to the mausoleum 
of Hadrian, then placed in the court of St. Peter's church 



IGO NOTES 

ill Rome, and now in the Vatican. It is six and one-half 
feet high. This would make Nimrod, in Dante's concep- 
tion, about fifty-four feet tall. 

61-i Mr. Cary, the author of the best known translation of Dante, 
published about thirteen years before Macaulay wrote 
this essay. 

618 Malebolge, literally, the evil pits, a place in Hell, where flat- 
terers, seducers, false prophets, and other deceivers were 
punished. It was divided into ten wards. 

621 Despair 

Tended the sick, busiest from coucli to couch ; 
Aud over them, triumphant Death his dart 
Shook, but delayed to strike, tliough oft invoked 
With vows as their chief good aud final hope. 

Paradise Lost, XI, 1. 489, etc. 

If the reader will turn to this passage and note the catalogue 
of diseases which immediately precedes the lines quoted, 
he will see how much truth there is in Macaulay's assertion 
that Milton avoids the loathsome details. 

625 Valdichiana, a marshy and malarious district in Italy. 

607 the second death ; sometimes thought of as the annihilation 
for which the damned cry in vain ; and this is the sense in 
which Macaulay understands the phrase. 

638 the portal, the gate of Hell over which was written : " Aban- 

don hope, all ye who enter here." 

639 The Gorgon, a monster of classical mythology whose gaze 

turned men that met it into stone. Dante was threatened 
with this fate by the Furies in Ilell, but turned away his 
eyes from seeing the Gorgon. 

640 Barbariccia and Draghignazzo, Ugly-beard and Dragon-face, 

two of the devils that guard the lake of boiling pitch in 
Hell, and tear with their hooks the sinners that show them- 
selves above it. They threatened to attack Dante, who fled 
from them to the protection of his guide through Hell. 
642 Lucifer, another name for Satan, represented by Dante as an 
enormous giant, plunged to the waist in the lowest pit of 
Hell. Dante emerged on the other side of Hell by climbing 
along the shaggy sides and legs of Lucifer. 
the mountain of Expiation, Purgatory, which Dante thought 



MILTON 161 

of as a mountain, on the other side of Hell, and reaching up 
to Heaven. 

643 the purifying angel, the warden of the gate of Purgatory 
marked with his sword upon the brow of Dante seven P's, 
for the seven deadly sins (^peccata) which he was to expiate 
in that region. 

619 Amadis, the hero of a romance of chivalry. 

Gulliver, the hero of Dean Swift's famous book, Gulliver's 
Traveh. 

660 Rotherhithe, a suburb of London. 

pygmies and giants, flying islands, and philosophising horses. 
In these words Macaulay alludes to the four journeys of 
Gulliver: first to Lilliput, the island of the dwarfs; then 
to Brobdingnag, the land of the giants; next to the flying 
island of Laputa; and last to the country of the Houylin- 
hnms, the wise and virtuous horses. 

672 functions, such as eating, drinking, suffering, bleeding, etc. 
But Milton thought of his angels and demons, not as dis- 
embodied spirits, but as material beings, only of a finer sub- 
stance than ours. 

674 eminent names. In particular that of Dr. Johnson. 

694 The first inhabitants of Greece, etc. There is good reason 
to believe the exact contrary ; namely, that the first in- 
habitants worshipped an almost indefinite number of 
gods. 

706 Gibbon, the famous English historian, assigned as secondary 
causes for the rapid spread of Christianity : (1) the zeal of 
the Christians; (2) the doctrine of a future life; (8) the 
miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church ; (4) the 
pure morals of the Christians ; and (.5) the union and disci- 
pline of the church. 

717 The Synagogue, here used for the Jewish Church as a whole. 

718 The Academy, a sceptical school of Greek and Roman philoso- 

phy, taking its name from the grove of Academus near 
Athens, in which the early philosophers taught. 
The Portico, used here for the Stoic school of philosophers, 
who took their name from the Stoa, or Portico, in Athens, 
where their founder used to teach. 

719 the fasces of the Lictor, standing here for the civil, as the 



162 NOTES 

" swords of thirty legions," for the military power of the 
Roman Empire. 

723 St. George, the dragon slayer and patron saint of English 
soldiers. 

72-i St. Elmo, tlie patron saint of Italian sailors. The electric 
flames sometimes seen in dark stormy nights on the yards 
and mastheads of ships are called St. Elmo's fire. In an- 
cient times they were attributed to the presence of the 
" Great Twin Brethren," Castor and Pollux, who watched 
over the sailors. 

726 St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, especially of church 
music. 

790 Don Juan, the wicked hero of a Spanish legend. He invited the 
statue of a soldier, whom he had killed, to supper with him, 
and at the close of the feast was carried off by the devil. 

795 Farinata, a famous Florentine soldier who died just before 
Dante was born. The poet found him plunged to his waist 
in one of the fiery tombs of Hell. The interview between 
them in the tenth canto of the Inferno is one of the most 
celebrated passages in Dante. 

797 auto da fe, a Portuguese phrase meaning literally " act, or 

judgment, of faith." It was aj)plied first to the jjublic 
judgment pronounced on heretics, then to the execution of 
that judgment, death by fire. This is its meaning here. 

798 Beatrice, the lady whom Dante had loved on earth. She died 

ten years before the Divine Comedy was written. In the poem 
she meets Dante at the summit of the Mount of Purgatory, 
and by her reproaches leads him to the confession and re- 
pentance which was necessary before he could enter Heaven. 

808 In Tasso's poem, Jerusalem Delivered, the devils try to prevent 
the victory of the Crusaders. They are represented, like 
the devils of medifeval painting, as hideous monsters with 
horns and tails. 
Klopstock, a German poet of tlie eighteenth century. In his 
Messiah he describes the devils in a rather pompous and 
inflated style. 

825 Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. 

829 The Titans, in Greek mythology an older race of gods who 
ruled the world before the birth of -lupiter. 



MILTON 163 

830 the Furies, avenging deities of Greek mythology. 

831 Prometheus, one of the Titans. He helped Jupiter to dethrone 

the older race of gods, but afterward for intervening be- 
tween mankind and Jupiter, was chained down on Mount 
Caucasus, wliere a vulture daily came to tear his vitals. 

841 The knowledge which he possesses, etc. Prometheus knew 
that Jupiter would have a child Mdio would drive him from 
the throne of the gods, as he had driven his father, Saturn. 
Prometheus alone was able to avert this fate. In the play 
of ^ICschylus a messenger comes from Jupiter to demand 
the secret, but Prometheus, who hopes to see his sufferings 
avenged, refuses to reveal it. 

848 Michael, the archangel, leader of the hosts of Heaven in their 
war against Satan, on whom he inflicts a terrible wound 
with his sword. (Paradise Lost, \I, 11. 296-343.) 
The thunder of Jehovah. At the end of the three days' fight 
in Heaven, Satan and his angels are driven out by the 
Messiah, armed with the thunder of God. {Paradise Lost, 
Vr, 11. 824-866.) 

875 Sardinian soil. Sardinian honey is mentioned by the Latin 
poets as having a very bitter flavor. This was supposed to 
be due to a certain plant growing in that island. There is 
no reference known to the Sardinian soil as being noxious ; 
on the contrary, that island was one of the granaries of the 
Roman Empire. But the honey of Corsica was as bad as 
that of Sardinia, and the barrenness of Corsica is referred 
to by a Latin author. Possibly Macaulay confused the two 
islands. 

880 Hebrew poet. The quotation is from Job x. 22. 

890 Milton ... a lover. For the story of Milton's marriage see 
The Life of Milton in the introduction. Dante's love for 
Beatrice is one of the famous passions of literature. One 
cannot say so much of Milton's attachment to ]\Iary Powell. 

895 some had been taken away, etc. Oliver Cromwell was dead; 
Goffe was hiding in New England (see Hawthorne's story 
of the " Gray Champion " in Twice Told Tales) ; Lambert, 
one of the great Roundhead generals, was in prison ; Sir 
HaiTy Vane had been beheaded shortly after the return of 
Charles IL 



104 NOTES 

890 venal scribblers. A niiiiiber of writers wlio liad praised Crom. 
well turned their coats at the restoration and sang tlie 
praises of Charles. 

000 the style of a bellman, that is, in a rude doggerel, like that in 
which the bellman cries the hours or makes public an- 
nouncements. 

900 Satyrs, monsters of Greek mythology, having the head and 
body of a man, and the legs of a goat. 

923 every calamity, etc. This sentence is one of INIacaulay's rhe- 
torical exaggerations. There are many calamities incident 
to our nature which Milton never experienced ; he was not 
poor, having an income equivalent to $3500 to-day ; he was 
not disgraced ; and his decent house is not to be called a 
hovel. 

930 Theocritus, the fii'st of Greek pastoral poets. There is a beau- 

tiful translation of his poems by Andi-ew Lang in the 
Golden Treasury Series. 

931 Ariosto, a famous Italian poet of the sixteenth century. 

His poem, Orlando Furioso, is noted for its beauty and 
gayety. 

9-4G critics. The reference is again to Dr. Johnson, who spoke 
very slightingly of Milton's sonnets. 

948 Filicaja, an Italian poet of the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. 

954 a dream. The twenty-third sonnet commemorates Milton's 
dream of his dead wife, Katherine Woodstock. It is per- 
haps worth noting, that the dream did not restore him that 
beautiful face since he was blind when he married her, and 
in the dream she appeared veiled. 

958 Greek anthology, an old collection of Greek lyric poems, fa- 
mous for their simple beauty. 

900 Massacres of Piedmont. While INIilton was Latin Secretary, 
the Waldenses, a simple Protestant people living in the 
mountains of Savoy, were brutally attacked and many of 
them massacred by their Roman Catholic ruler. Cromwell 
threatened to declare war on him on this account, and Mil- 
ton wrote in this connection the most famous of his son- 
nets, beginning, " Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints." 

978 Oromasdes and Arimanes. The old Persians believed that the 



MILTON 165 

universe was divided between two eternally warring spirits, 
Oroniasdes, the Lord of Light and Life, and Arinianes, the 
Lord of Darkness and Death. 
984 American forests. Macaulay was tliinking not only of the 
American Revolution, but of the struggle of the Spanish 
colonies in South America for liberty, which was going on 
in his day. 
Greece. The Romans conquered Greece about one hundred 
and fifty years before Christ, and she was held in slavery 
by one master or another till 1829. The war of Greek 
Independence was going on when Macaulay wrote this 
essay. 
996 the lion in the fable. In one of ^sop's fables a man points 
out to a lion the statue of a lion being strangled by a man. 
'• That is because a man was the sculptor," said the lion. 
1003 Mrs. Hutchinson, the widow of a Roundhead colonel, wrote a 
memoir of her husband which is of great interest and 
value as a contemporary record of those times. 
May, Tliomas May, an English poet and playwright, took 
the side of the Parliament in the Civil AVar, and published 
in 1647 The Hislor;/ of (lie Parliament, a semi-official 
defence of the Parliament's actions. It breaks off before 
the execution of the king. 
1005 Ludlow, Edmund Ludlow, one of the regicide judges, wrote 
a memoir of his life and times, which is marked by great 
pi'ejudice. 
1007 Oldmixon, an English historian of the eighteenth century. 
His Critical History of England (1720) takes the Parlia- 
ment's side. 
Catherine Macaulay, a well-known woman of letters in the 
eighteenth century, who wrote A History of England from 
the Accession of James I. Like the preceding writers, she 
takes the Parliamentary side. 
1011 Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, one of the 
leading Royalists in the Civil War, and Prime Minister of 
Charles II. after the Restoration, wrote a History of the 
Rebellion, which was for a long time regarded as the best 
account of that period. Its tone, of course, is strongly 
Rovalist, 



166 NOTES 

Hume, David Hume, the Scotch philosopher and histo- 
rian, wrote about the middle of the last century, a His- 
torij of England, which* remained for many years the 
standard. He was very strongly prejudiced against the 
Puritans. 

1038 Revolution of 1688, which drove James II. from the throne, 
and established constitutional monarchy in England. 
great Rebellion, otherwise the Civil War between King and 
Parliament, 1642-1(319. 

1042 his son, James IT. 

1044 Laud, William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under 
Charles I. He was the leader of the High Church party 
of that day. 

1055 a certain class. Macaulay is referring to the Tories of his 
day, who opposed Catholic emancipation and cited the ex- 
ample of the great Whig hero, AVilliam of Orange, to sup- 
port their views. 

10G6 their prototype, Satan. The quotation is from a speech of 
Satan's in Paradise Lost, I, 11. 164-165. 

1073 one sect, the Roman Catholics. 

1075 one part of the empire, Ireland, which was treated by AVill- 
iam III. as a conquered country and placed under very 
harsh laws. 

1083 doctrine of Divine Right, the doctrine that the right of kings 
to rule is derived from God, and that they are responsible 
for their actions to God alone. 

1085 Legitimacy, the watch-word of the Royalist party on tlie 

continent in Macaulay 's day. 

1086 Somers, one of the Whig leaders in the Revolution of 1688, 

"equally eminent as a jurist and as a politician, as an 

orator and as a writer." 
Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the 

seven English noblemen who invited William of Orange 

to invade England. 
1089 Jacobite. Jacobus is the Latin form for James. Hence the 

Jacobites were those who maintained that the exiled 

James II. and his descendants were the true kings of 

England. 
1091 St. George's Channel divides England from Ireland. 



MILTON 167 

1092 the glorious and immortal memory of William III. was a stock 
toast of the Whigs. 

1095 Ferdinand the Catholic. This is the historic title of Ferdi- 
nand of Aragon, the husband of Isabella of Castile ; but 
Macaulay is probably alluding to the contemporary king 
of Spain, Ferdinand the Seventh, a bigoted and arbitrary 
ruler. 
Frederic the Protestant. Frederick the Great was known 
in England in his day as the " Protestant hero " ; but 
Macaulay is probably thinking of Frederick William III., 
the contemporary king of Prussia, one of the leaders of 
the Holy Alliance. 

1101 Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith, the famous English poet, wrote 

a Histonj of England, chiefly derived from llume, in 1771, 

and afterward published an abridgment of his own work. 
1115 famous resolution, by which Parliament in the beginning of 

1689 declared the English throne vacant. 
llo5 Declaration of Right, the formal invitation of the Parliament 

to William and Mary to assume the vacant monarchy. It 

set forth the ancient rights and liberties of England 

which had been violated by James 11. 
the two Houses, the House of Commons and the House of 

Lords, which make up Parliament. 

1152 Ship-money, a tax laid by Charles I. upon the people without 

the consent of Parliament, nominally to raise money for 
the navy. 

1153 the Star-chamber, a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction 

which took its name from the decorations of the room in 
Westminster where it met. It was composed of certain 
members of the Royal Council and some bishops, and was 
infamous as an instrument of tyranny. 

1102 a disputed succession, etc. Until the middle of the last cen- 

tury the exiled Stuarts disputed the right to the crown 
with the Hanoverians, the " dynasty of strangers." From 
1688 to 1710 William and his successor were engaged in 
almost constant war, first in the conquest of Scotland and 
Ireland, then in war with France, which supported the 
Stuarts. The English standing army and national debt 
both had their origin in this period. 



168 NOTES 

1165 The Long Parliament, llie famous Parliament of the Civil 
Wars, which sat from 1640 to 1653, when it was driven out 
by Cromwell. 

1178 The Petition of Right, a paper presented to Charles I. by the 
Parliament in 1628, stating the rights of Englishmen, and 
petitioning that he would agree to observe them. He did 
so in return for a certain grant of money, the " five sub- 
sidies " mentioned in line 1181. 

1191 circumstances, etc. The complete collapse of Charles's at- 
tempt to force the English church on Scotland, and the 
invasion of England by the Scots. 

1194: le Roi le veut, "the king wills it," the old Norman formula 
by which royal assent is given to an Act of Parliament. 

1228 Vandyke dress. Antony Vandyke, or Van Dyck, the great 
portrait painter of the seventeenth century, painted many 
pictures of Charles I. lie is uniformly represented in a 
handsome dress, with long lace collar and cuffs. See the 
illustration in this book facing p. xxx. 

1248 the Tudors, the English dynasty which preceded the Stuarts ; 
viz. Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and 
Elizabeth. The name comes from their Welsh ancestor, 
Owen Tudor. 

1264 Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, the great 
minister of Charles I. He M'as impeached of treason and 
beheaded by the Long Parliament. 

1268 Major-generals. Under Cromwell's rule England was divided 
into military districts over each of which a Major-general 
was jjlaced, to whom the security of the district was 
entrusted. Some of them, no doubt, were false to their 
charge and thought more of filling their pockets than of 
anything else. 

1272 The stained glass windows with figures of the Madonna and 

saints were particularly hated by the Puritans as relics of 
idolatry. 

1273 Quakers. The Society of Friends, better known by this nick- 

name, came into existence during the Commonwealth. 
Many of the early Quakers were half insane and com- 
mitted wild excesses. 

1274 Fifth Monarchy men, a .sect which si)rang up under tiie 



MILTON 169 

Commonwealth. Its members looked for the immediate 
establishment of the earthly kingdom of Christ, which 
they called the Fifth Monarchy, the first fonr being those 
of Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. .lust after the 
Restoration a body of them broke out in rebellion and 
tried to seize London in the name of " King Jesus." 

127") Agag, the king of the Amalekites, hewn in pieces by the 
prophet Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 33). The Puritans used to 
refer to his fate as a warning to tyrants. 

Lj15 Xeres, or Jerez de la Frontera, is not a river, as one would 
imagine from the context, but a town in Spain, famous 
for the wine called " sherry," which gets its name from 
the town. 

1334 Ariosto. The storj' occurs in tlie Orlando Furioso. 

1380 The Regicides, the name applied particularly to the members 
of tlie court that condemned Charles I. to death. 

1395 Jefferies, or Jeffreys, the wicked Chief-Justice of James IL, 
especial]}- infamous for the brutality with which he pun- 
ished those who took part in Monmouth's rebellion. 

1397 The Boyne, a river in northern Ireland, where William III. 
won a decisive victory over James II. in 1690. Both 
kings were present at the fight. 

1410 his innocent heir. The son of James II. by his second wife, 

Mary of INIodena, was born only a few months before 
James was driven from England. He was " attainted " 
when, in consequence of his father's misdeeds, his right to 
the throne was taken from him. 

1411 his nephew and his two daughters. William of Orange was 

the son of James's sister, Mary, the eldest daughter of 
Charles I. William's wife, Mary, and his successor. Queen 
Anne, were daughters of James II. by his first wife, Anne 
Hyde. Both these princesses took part against their 
father in the Revolution. 

1413 the fifth of November, the anniversary of William's landing 
in England, formerly commemorated by a special form of 
prayer in the English prayer-book. 

141G the thirtieth of January, the anniversary of the execution of 
Charles I., formerly observed as a day of prayer and fasting 
by the English church. Tliis service, with its special form 



1 70 NOTES 

of prayer, as well as that mentioned in the preceding note, 
was struck out of the Prayer-book during the reign of 
Queen Victoria. In the passage in tlie text i\Iacaulay 
quotes from both these forms. 

1428 his heir, Charles II., at that time a refugee in Holland. 

1-129 the Presbyterians. A strong section of the Puritans wished 
to see the Presbyterian form of church government estab- 
lished in England. This party was in close alliance with 
the Scots, and both feared and hated the advanced body 
of the Puritans represented by Cromwell and the army. 
Charles II. was proclaimed king at Edinburgh within a 
week after his father's death, and Cromwell was forced to 
undertake the conquest of Scotland. 

l-44:9 Salmasius, Claiide de Saumaise, better known by his Latin 
name, Salmasius, at that time a professor in Holland. 
He was induced by Charles II. to plead the cause of the 
Stuarts, and did so in a Latin work entitled Defensio Regia 
pro Carolo T. 

1453 Mrxe?t magni dextra, •' the right hand of great iEneas," words 
quoted from a speech addressed by iEneas to liis unequal 
opponent, young Lausus. The phrase is used here to in- 
dicate that IMilton was as much superior to Salmasius as 
^neas was to his opponent. 

1464 the Protector. Cromwell ruled England as Protector from 
1653 till his death in 1658. He first accepted tliis office 
at the desire of the army. 

1476 a Venetian oligarchy. Venice, ostensibly a republic, was in 
reality ruled by a limited number of noble families. No 
outsider could be admitted to the Great Council. The 
wish of the members of the Long Parliament to perpetuate 
their power almost justifies ]\Iacaulay"s remarks. 

1479 a constitution, the histruiiienl of Government, drawn up by the 
council of officers in 1653. 

1481 the representative system, etc. The old representative sys- 
tem of England was marked by startling inequalities, 
some single counties sending more members to Parlia- 
ment than six other counties did. Cromwell attempted 
to equalize things, and Clarendon, bigoted Royalist as he 
is, pronounces his scheme " an alteration fit to be more 
warrantably made, and in a better time." 



MILTON 171 

1484 stadtholder, the title of tlie chief magistrate of the Dutch 
Republic. 

1493 Bolivar, Simon Bolivar, " the Liberator," the great hero of 
the revolt of the Spanish colonies of South America, 
famous like Washington for his freedom from personal 
ambition. 

1515 the thirty years, etc., a round number covering the reigns of 
Charles II. and James II., from 1(J60 to 1688, 

1526 the Humble Petition and Advice, a proposal by Parliament in 
1657 for the revision of the constitution and the bestowal 
of the crown upon Cromwell. He declined to take the 
title of king, dreading the opposition of the army, but 
accepted that of Lord Protector, and ruled under" the new 
constitution till his death. 

1542 the Independents, Cromwell's supporters, so called from their 
theory of church government, in which every congregation 
was an independent body. 

1546 the most frivolous, etc., Charles II. 

1552 his rival, Louis XIV. of France. 

1559 Anathema Maranatha. Anathema is a Greek word meaning 
first something consecrated to a god, then something 
accursed. Maranatha is really two Hebrew words mean- 
ing "our Lord is come." It simply adds force to the 
foregoing " anathema." The phrase is used by St. Paul 
as a curse against unbelievers. (1 Corinthians xvi. 22.) 

1561 Belial and Moloch, two fiends who take part in the council 

in Pandemonium described in the second book of Paradise 
Lost. Belial, " graceful and humane," '' to vice industri- 
ous, but to nobler deeds timorous and slothful," stands 
here for Charles II., the careless, smooth-spoken, licentious 
king; Moloch, "the fiercest spirit that fought in Heaven," 
stands for the harsh and cruel James II. 

1562 the blood of her best, etc. Macaulay has been charged with 

gross exaggeration in this sentence ; yet it is certainly 
true tliat some of the noblest of living Englishmen, Sir 
Henry Vane, Algernon Sidney, and Loi-d Russell, were 
put to death in this reign for little or no cause. 

1504 the race, the Stuart dynasty. 

1584 kissed the hand, etc. In England when a minister accepts 



172 NOTES 

office he kisses the sovereign's hand as a sign of his loyalty. 
16-40 is the date of the assembling of the Long Parliament. 
1585 spat in his face. Clarendon records the "barbarous and 
brutal behaviour " of certain persons toward Charles dur- 
ing his trial: "they called him tyrant and murderer, 
and one spit in his face." lOiO is the date of the trial 
and execution of Charles. 

1587 Westminster Hall, built by William Rufus in 1097, was 

long used for the meetings of Parliament. Cromwell 
was inaugurated here as Lord Protector, with great 
solemnity and magnificence. 

1588 Tyburn, the place of public execution in London down to 

the close of the last century. On the twelfth anniversary 
of the king's execution, Cromwell's bones, which had 
been dug up from AVestminster Abbey, were hung on 
the gallows at Tyburn, 
calves' heads. Some of the fiercer republicans were said to 
have formed a Calves' Head Club which had an annual din- 
ner on the anniversary of the king's execution, at which 
calves' heads were served up in mockery of Charles's fate, 
oak-branches. During the flight after the battle of Worcester, 
Charles II. was for some time concealed in an oak from his 
pursuers ; a spray of oak in the hat, or a branch over the 
door, was the badge of a Royalist on the anniversary of 
the Restoration, the '20th of ]May. 

1606 satirists and dramatists. Butler among the satirists, Wych- 
erly among the dramatists, distinguished themselves by 
the ridicule they heaped upon the Puritans. 

1G16 excellent writers. INIacaulay is probably thinking of AValter 
Scott, several of whose novels, Woodstock in particular, 
contain pictures of Puritans distorted by the writer's 
Tory prejudice. 

1617 '• See here the stream of laughter, see the spring, 

(Quoth they) of danger and of deadly pain! 
Here foud desire nnist l)y fair governing 
Be ruled, our lust bridled with Wisdom's rein." 

The quotation is from Tasso's Jeruaulem Deiicered (Canto XV, 
stanza 57). The fount of laughter was one of the charms 
of the witch, Armida, to entice heroes from the true way. 



MILTON 173 

1698 the Beatific Vision, the direct vision of God, granted to tlie 

blessed dead. 

1699 Vane, Sir Henry Vane the younger, a leading member of the 

Puritan party. His religious views seemed even to his 

contemporaries wild and mystical. Clarendon says he once 

believed that he was deputed to reign over the saints on 

earth for a thousand years. 
1701 Fleetwood, a famous Puritan general, son-in-law of Cromwell. 

In the period of anarchy that followed Cromwell's death, 

he declared that God had spit in his face and would not 

hear him. 
1724 Sir Artegal, the Knight of Justice, one of the heroes of 

Spenser's Faerie Queen. 
Talus, in Greek mythology, a man of brass, built by Vulcan 

to guard the island of Crete. Spenser makes him the 

servant of Sir Artegal. 

1737 Dunstan, an English bishop and statesman of the tenth 

century. He tried to make the church superior to the 
state. 
De Montfort. Simon de Montfort, father of the famous 
English statesman, was noted for the strictness of his 
orthodoxy and for the ruthlessness with which he crushed 
the heretics of southern France. 

1738 Dominic, St. Dominic, the champion of orthodoxy and sup- 

posed founder of the Inquisition. 
Escobar, a Spanish Jesuit, best known as the propounder of 
the Jesuit doctrine that the end justifies the means. 
1748 Gallio, the Roman ruler who took no interest in the disputes 
of Jews and Christians (Acts xviii. 12-17). 

1752 Plutarch, the famous classical biographer of Greek and 

Pvoman heroes. 

1753 the Brissotines, better known as the Girondists, the moderate 

I'epublicans of the French Revolution. Brissot was one 
of their leaders. Like the theoretical republicans of whom 
Macaulay is here speaking, they were high-minded but 
unpractical. 
1764 Whitefriars, a district in London, taking its name from a 
monastery established there. It was a sanctuary for 
debtors and rascals of every sort. Scott gives a very good 



174 NOTES 

picture of it in the Fortunes of Nigel. His Roger, Wild- 
rake in Woodstock is a good example of the wilder type of 
cavalier. 

1774 the Janissaries, the famous body-guard of the Turkish 
Sultans, massacred the year after Macaulay wrote this 
essay. 

1786 Duessa, the false witch of the Faerie Queen. She wins over 
with a lying tale, the Red-Cross Knight, one of the heroes 
of that poem, and he becomes for a time her champion. 

1798 the Round Table, the famous table of King Arthur at which 
his knights assembled. 

1809 conventicle, a secret gathering for the purpose of worship, 
especially applied to the secret meetings of the persecuted 
Puritans under the Stuarts. 
Gothic cloister. Gothic is the term commonly applied to 
the architecture of the late middle ages. The colleges of 
Oxford and Cambridge, and most of the English cathe- 
drals are beautiful examples of this style. Macaulay here 
contrasts the splendid buildings of the English church 
with the secret meeting jilaces of the Puritans. 

1811 Christmas revel. To keep Christmas was in those days the 
sign of the Cavaliers. The Puritans denounced this festi- 
val as a relic of superstition. 

1816 The quotation is from the second sonnet of Milton. 

1823 ludicrous jargon. The reference is to the Puritan custom of 
interlarding all conversation with phrases from the Bible, 
well or ill applied. 

1835 the hero of Homer, Ulysses, who bound himself to the mast 
of his ship, having first stopped the ears of his crew with 
wax, that he might hear unharmed the song of the Sirens. 
These were sea-nymphs whose sweet singing drew mariners 
to death on the rocks. Ulysses also drank unharmed of 
the cup of Circe, the famous enchantress, a draught of 
which used to turn men into beasts. When he did so he 
had upon him a charmed herb, given him by a friendly 
god, which counteracted the spell. 

1844 sentiments of his treatises. Milton wrote a number of 
pamphlets attacking Prelacy, that is the government of 
the church by bishops. 



MILTON 175 

1845 the exquisite lines, etc. See II Pemeroso, 11. 155-1G6. 

1857 a forsworn king, etc. Charles [. and the Church of England 
as it existed under Laud. 

1876 malignants, the Puritan term of reproach for the extreme 
Cavaliers. 
his own poem, Comus. The following quotation is from 
Comus, 11. 814-819. 

1895 the secular chain, the control of the church by the state. 
The phrase is from Milton's sixteenth sonnet, as is the 
reference to the Presbyterian wolf in the next line. 
Milton speaks of the state-paid clergy whom the Presby- 
terians were trying to force upon the nation as " hireling 
wolves." 
the licensing system, the censorship of the press. This 
favorite weapon of tyranny had been taken up by Parlia- 
ment during the civil wars for use against their oppo- 
nents, the Independents. Milton wrote his Arenpagitica, 
a pamphlet in the form of an address to the Parliament, 
to persuade them to grant the liberty of the press. 

1899 as a sign upon his hand, etc. Moses commanded the Jews to 
wear the commandments of the Lord. 

192G the god of light, Apollo, the Sun-god. The following quota- 
tion is from OviiTs Metamorphoses (Book II, 11. 72-73). 
Apollo says to his son. Phaeton, describing his daily 
journey through the sky : " I struggle against oj^position ; 
nor does the force which conquers- other things, conquer 
me, but I am borne against the swift moving world." 

1941 a seven-fold chorus, etc. The quotation is from Milton's 
pamphlet. The Reason for Church Government. 

1945 the Iconoclast. Ten days after the execution of Charles I. a 
book, called Eilon Basilikc', the Royal linage, appeared, 
purporting to be written by the king and giving an ac- 
count of his pious meditations during the last years of his 
life. It had ah immense sale, and it may be said to have 
started the cult of Charles as the Royal Martyr. The 
government asked ]\Iilton to answer it, and in October of 
the same year he published a ]iamphlet called Eikonoclastes, 
the Image-breaker. He thought, to use his own words, 
that Queen Truth was to be preferred to King Charles. 



17G NOTES 

The Treatise of Reformation and tlie Animadversions, etc. 

Two pamphlets ))_y Milton, written in the year 1611, on 
the question of church reform. 

1972 Elwood. See the biographical sketch of jNlilton iu the 
Introduction, p. xxxv. 

1982 Boswellism. James Boswell, the famous biographer of Dr. 
Johnson, was thought by Macaulay to be an unreasoning 
admirer of his hero. 

1993 Massinger, an English dramatist, a younger contemporary of 
. Shakespeare. The yirgin Marhji- is a play assigned to 
him on the stoiy of St. Dorothea. Her persecutor in 
mockery asked her to send him some fruit from the 
heavenly region where she said she was going. After her 
death an angel brought him a basket of celestial fruits 
and flowers, and this miracle converted him to Christianitv. 



NOTES ON THE ESSAY ON ADDISON 

[riie figures refer to lines as iujieated in the uiargiu of the text] 

12 the courteous Knight, Ruggiero, or Rogero, the hero of 
Ariosto's poem Orlando Furioso. He was compelled by 
the claims of gratitude to fight in the lists against Brada- 
mante, a virgin knight and his lady-love. Before doing so 
he laid aside his magic sword, Balisarda, which could cut 
through every defence, and blunted the point and edge of 
the inferior weapon that he took in its place. His magic 
armor enabled him to sustain her attack, and though he in- 
flicted no wound on her, he was, by the terms of the com- 
bat, declared victor at the end of the day. 

28 Laputan flapper. Laputa was a flying island visited by Gul- 
liver. Its inhabitants were so engrossed in study and 
meditation that they could neither speak nor hear without 
being roused by the " flapper." This was a servant who 
carried a bladder full of peas or pebbles on the end of a 
stick, with which he flapped the mouth or ears of his 
master when it was time for him to speak or listen to some 
one. (See Gulliver's Travels, Part III, chap. 2.) 

38 Raleigh, Sir Walter Raleigh, the famous courtier, voyager, 
and poet of Elizabeth's reign. 

40 Congreve, a poet and dramatist of Addison's day. 
Prior, a poet and politician of Addison's day. 

41 Theobald's, a mansion built by Lord Burghley, Queen Eliz- 

abeth's minister, afterwards the property and favorite 
hunting-seat of James I. " Ruffs and peaked beards " were 
fashionable at his court. 

42 Steenkirks, lace cravats, loosely tied. They took their name 

from the gay disorder in which the household troops of 
Louis XIV. charged the English at the battle of Steenkirk 
in 1692. 

43 Hampton, Hampton Court on the Thames, some miles above 

London, a favorite resort of Queen Anne. 
69 Parnell, a minor British poet, a contemporary of Addison's. 

177 



178 NOTES 

Dr. Blair, a Scotch preacher and lecturer on rhetoric, once 
considered a great authority, but now almost forgotten. 

70 a tragedy, etc., i.e. Cato, which Macaulay thinks not very 
much better than Johnson's Irene, a tragedy which was 
generally pronounced a failure at the time and is unread 
now. 

79 Button's, a coffee-house in London, a favorite resort of Addi- 
son. 

85-86 the nobler parts, i.e. the vital organs. 

99 the Biographia Britannica, a collection of lives of the most 
eminent Elnglishmen, a favorite book of Macaulay's. 

106 the fallen Church, the Church of England, suppressed by law 

during the Commonwealth. 

107 the Wild of Sussex, more commoidy called The AVeald, a wild 

district in the South of England. During the Civil Wars 
it was strongly Royalist. 

110 Dunkirk, a French seaport on the Strait of Dover, ceded by 
tlie French to Cromwell in return for his assistance against 
the Spanish. Charles II. sold it back, to the gx'eat disgust 
of the English people. 

128 the Revolution, i.e. of 1688, commonly called tlie Revolution 
in English histories. 

130 the Convocation, an assembly of the clergy of the English 
Church for the settlement of church affairs. The convo- 
cation of 1689 was summoned by William III. in the hope 
that it would make such reforms as would admit the non- 
conformists to membership in the Church of England. 
Tillotson, then a leading clergyman, was the instrument 
by whom ^Villiam hoped to effect these reforms. They 
were however rejected by the intolerant majority of the 
Convocation. 

135 the Charter House, one of the most famous of English schools. 
It was founded in 1611 in the buildings of an old Carthu- 
sian monastery, known as the Ckartereiise, of which word 
Charter House is a popular corruption. Thackeray^iis well 
as Addison and Steele, was a Charter House boy. 

153 Magdalene (pronounced Maudlin), one of the richest and 
most famous colleges which compose the University of 
Oxford. 



ADDISON 179 

160 James, !.p. James II. 

his Chancellor, the infamous Chief Justice Jeifreys. 
In 1689 James ordered the Fellows of Magdalene to elect a 
Roman Catholic as their head, or president. As this was 
contrary to the law, they refused and chose Hough, one of 
their number. He was turned out of his place by force, 
and a favorite of the king's put in his place. The Fellows 
who refused to acknowledge the legality of this act were 
driven from the college, and their places filled by Roman 
Catholics. 

164 the prosecution of the Bishops. In 1688 the Archbishop of 
Canterbury and six bishops presented a petition to James 
begging him to excuse the clergy from reading in their 
pulpits his illegal Declaration of Indulgence, an edict 
granting complete liberty of worship to Roman Catholics 
and Dissenters. For this they were sent to the Tower, 
and prosecuted for seditious libel. This attack on the 
Church was one of the chief causes of James's downfall. 

184 Demies. The Demies of Magdalene, thirty in number, were 
holders of undergraduate scholarships. 

188 the Cherwell, a little stream which joins the Thames at 
Oxford. 

203 Lucretius and Catullus, Latin poets contemporary with Csesar, 
the first Latin poets, excepting the dramatists Plautus and 
Terence, of whose works any large amount remains. Clau- 
dianus and Prudentius, on the other hand, represent the 
Latin poetry just before the fall of the Empire. 

209 Buchanan, George Buchanan, a famous Scotch scholar, tutor 
to James I. He was especially famous for his Latin verse. 

228 the Metamorphoses, the longest and best known poem of 
Ovid's, dealing with the various changes of men and women 
into beasts, birds, stars, and so forth, which are related in 
Greek mythology. 

2.32 Statins, a Latin poet of the close of the first century of our 
era. 

236 the story of Pentheus. Fentheus, king of Thebes, resisted the 
introduction of the worship of Bacchus and blasphemed the 
god. In consequence he was torn to pieces by the maddened 
women who were celebrating the sacred orgies. Among 



180 NOTES 

these was his own mother. This story was dramatized by 
Euripides in the Bacrhae, and Theocritus made it the sub- 
ject of his twenty-sixtli Idyll. 
246 Ausonius and Manillas, minor Latin poets. 

254 Polybius, a Greek historian of the second Punic War. 

255 Livy, the great Roman historian, a contemporary of Virgil 

and Horace. 

25G Silius Italicus, a minor Latin poet of the first century, who 
wrote a long epic poem on the second Punic AVar. 
the Rubicon, a little river in Italy separating Caesar's province 
of Cisalpine Gaul from Italy proper. His passage of the 
river at the head of an armed force was the first act of the 
civil war in which he overthrew the Republic. Plutarch, 
in his life of Csesar, repi-esents him as hesitating remorse- 
fully at the brink, and at last crossing it with the words, 
" A desperate man feareth no dangers : come on." The 
account in the commentaries on the civil war by C?esar 
himself makes no mention of the passage of the Rubicon. 
Letters to Atticus. Atticus was an intimate friend of Cicero 
by whom the letters here mentioned were written. 

261 Lucan, a Latin poet of the time of Nero. He wrote an epic 
poem, The Pharsalia, on the civil war between Csesar and 
Pompey. 

264 Callimachus, a Greek poet and scholar of the third century b.c. 

266 Juvenal, the famous Roman satirist. 

267 The Treatise on Medals. The proper title is Dialogues upon the 

Usefulness of Ancient Medals, especially in relation to the 
Latin and Greek. Poets, a work of Addison's, published after 
his death. It is an unfinished work, and deals only with 
medals struck by the Roman emperors. Hence it is not 
wonderful that Addison does not quote a line from any 
Greek writer. That he would have done so had he finished 
the work is shown by the last part of the title. 

279 Essay on the Evidences of Christianity, an unfinished work of 
Addison's, publislied after his death. 

286 the Cock-Lane ghost, a famous humbug in London at the time 
of Dr. Johnson. A house in Cock-Lane, London, was sup- 
posed to be haunted by a ghost which proclaimed its presence 
by raps on the wall, and entered into conversation with 



ADDISON 181 

visitors. Half the town Ijelieved in the ghost, until it was 
proved by an investigating committee that a girl in the 
liouse was guilty of the trick. 

287 Ireland's Vortigern. Ireland was a clever forger of the end 

of the last century who deceived many scholars with forged 
manuscripts purporting to be by Shakespeare.. He finally 
had the audacity to produce a play, Vortigern and Roicena, 
which he said he had found in Shakespeare's handwriting. 
It was actually put on the stage as Shakespeare's, but was 
laughed off the boards, and Ireland was forced to own the 
imposture. 

288 the Thundering Legion. When Marcus Aurelius was besieged 

by a barbarian army and his water supply cut off, a sudden 
rain-storm filled his trenches and enabled him to defeat the 
enemy. This fortunate occurrence was ascribed by some to 
the prayers of a legion of Christian soldiers, and an early 
historian asserted that Aurelius gave the legion the name 
of " Fulminata," the Thundering. One of the early de- 
fenders of Christianity declared that letters of Aurelius 
acknowledging the miracle were in existence. No one 
believes the story now, but in Addison's day it was gener- 
ally held true. 
Tiberius, the second Roman Emperor. Tertullian, one of the 
early advocates of Christianity, asserts that he was so im- 
pressed with the reports of Christ's life that he would have 
included him among the gods if the senate had not been 
unwilling. There is no good authority for this story. 

290 Agbarus, King of Edessa. One of the old church historians, 
Eusebius, tells us that Agbarus, king of Edessa, a Syrian 
town, wrote to Christ, begging him to come and heal him 
of his sickness. The letter and Christ's reply are both 
given in Eusebius, and are both forgeries, a fact which 
Addison was not enough of a scholar to detect. 

301 Boyle and Blackmore. Charles Boyle, an English nobleman 
with some pretensions to scholarship, was at Oxford along 
with Addison. "The worst book " of the text is a work in 
which Boyle and some of his friends attacked the great 
scholar, Bentley. There is an interesting account of this 
dispute in Macaulay's Essay on Sir William Temple. 



182 NOTES 

Sir Richard Blackmore was an exceedingly dull poet of Addi- 
son's day. 

307 an aphorism, originally a definition, or concise statement of a 
principle. 
an apophthegm, a pithy saying, a maxim. Blackmore is not 
the only author who has confounded these words. So good 
a scholar as Dr. Johnson used aphorism in the sense of 
apophthegm. 

309 false quantities, a failure to note accurately the length of 
a Latin syllable is called a " false quantity." English 
scholars have always been most intolerant of this fault. 

315 Bentley, the greatest English classical scholar of Addison's 
time. The Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris (1. 326) 
was the work in which he proved that certain Greek letters 
attributed to Phalaris, a Sicilian tyi-ant,_ were forgeries. 

330 Pygmies, a race of dwarfs inhabiting Africa, who were sup- 
posed to wage incessant war with the Cranes. 

332 breakfast-tables, an allusion to the Spectator. See 1. 2128. 

344-3-47 " And now between the battle lines advances the leader 
of the Pygmies, of dreaded majesty and firm step, who 
towers over all the rest with his huge form, and he is half 
as high as a man's forearm." 

351 Drury-Lane theatre, the chief theatre of London in Addison's 
day. 

354 Dryden, poet-laureate under Charles II. and James II., had 
been dismissed from this post after the Revolution of 1688. 
He was at this time recognized as the leading man of let- 
ters in England. 

360 Montague. See table appended to Introduction to this essay, 

p. Hi. 

361 Chancellor of the Exchequer, that member of the English gov- 

ernment who has charge of all matters relating to revenue 
and expenditure. 
364 the fourth Georgia. Virgil wrote four poems on agriculture, 
which are called the Georgics. 

369 the Newdigate prize, an annual prize at Oxford for the best 

English poem ; the Seatonian is a similar prize at Cam- 
bridge. 

370 The heroic couplet, the five foot iambic measure, in which the 



ADDISON 183 

rhymes are arranged in couplets. Pope's Iliad is written 

in this form. 
379 Pope, the greatest poet of Queen Anne's age. His Pastorals, 

his first work, appeared in 1709. 
389 Rochester, an intimate friend of Charles II., a most dissolute 

man, and a lyric poet of great merit. 
Marvel. Andrew Marvell, the friend of Milton, and a poet 

and satirist of considerable merit. 
Oldham, a minor poet of the Restoration. 
391 Ben Jonson, the famous poet and dramatist of the beginning 

of the seventeenth century. 
Hoole, a minor poet of the close of the eighteenth century. 
396 Brunei, a famous engineer who erected a " block machine," 

here called a mill, in the English navy-yard at Ports- 
mouth. 
428 Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, all forgotten poets of the 

close of the seventeenth century. 
444 his bees. The fourth Georgic treats in part of bee-culture. 
462 Dorset, an English nobleman of some talent for verse writing, 

and a great patron of letters toward the close of the 

seventeenth century. 
465 Rasselas, the hero of Dr. Johnson's story of that name. 
485 Somers. See Introduction, p. lii. 
492 the press was free. In 1695 the House of Commons declined 

to renew the lately expired law which subjected the press 

to a censorship. The act was almost unnoticed at the 

time, but, to quote Macaulay's words, " it has done more for 

liberty and for civilisation than the Great Charter or the 

Bill of Rights." 
504 The Revolution of July 1830, the three days' fight in the streets 

of Paris, in which Charles X., the last of the Bourbons, was 

driven from the throne of France. 
515 Somersets and Shrewsburies. See Introduction, p. liii. 
519 Both the great chiefs, etc. Somers and Montague. 
525 the peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697 between Louis XIV. 

of France, and the allies — England, Holland, Austria, and 

Spain. It was considered a great triumph for William III., 

the leader of the Allies. 
535 the Lord Chancellor, Somers; not to be confused with the 



V 

184 NOTES 

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Montague, mentioned in 
1. fj-SS. 

559 a toast, a reigning belle whose health was drunk by her 
admirers. It was an old custom in England to put a bit 
of toasted bread into such favorite drinks as spiced ale or 
sack. An incident mentioned by Steele {Tatler, No. 24) 
led to the use of the word to indicate a lady whose health 
was drunk in such liquor. Such a person was said to be 
'' toasted." Nowadays the word " toast " is used for any 
health drunk at a banquet. 

562 the Kit Cat Club, perhaps the most famous of all the social 
clubs of Queen Anne's reign. It took its name from the 
mutton pies called Kit Cats, made by Christopher (or Kit) 
Cat. It was composed of Whig noblemen and men of let- 
ters, and was especially noted for its " toasts," i.e. its col- 
lection of names of beautiful women inscribed with a 
diamond on the drinking glasses of the club. Under such 
a name w-ere often inscribed verses in the lady's honor. 

565 Versailles, the famous park and palace of Louis XIV. 

571 Racine, the second of the great French tragedians. The 

sacred dramas referred to are his Esther and Athaiie. 

572 Dacier, a French classical scholar of the reign of Louis XIV. 

573 the Athanasian mysteries. Athanasius, one of the early Chris- 

tian Fathers, was the great defender of the doctrine of the 
Trinity. It is to this doctrine that INIacaulay here alludes. 

584 an Abbe, a title assumed at this time in France by students 

of theology, who had only a formal connection with the 
church, and were, for the most part, tutors or literary men. 

585 Spence, Joseph Spence, an English writer of the eighteenth 

century, best known as the author of a collection of literary 
anecdotes. 
594 the Guardian, a periodical planned by Steele, to which Addi- 
son contributed. 

602 Malbranche, a famous French philosopher. 

603 Boileau, a famous French poet and critic, at this time a literary 

dictator in France. 
605 Hobbes, an English philosopher of the seventeenth century. 
His l)ook. The Leviathan, was a treatise on the theory of 
government. 



ADDISON 185 

611 the Academy, the famous French society of men of letters 
founded by Cardinal Richelieu and still existing. 

621 Sir Joshua. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great Englisli painter 

of the last century. 

622 Mrs. Thrale, the intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, who often 

stayed at her home, Streatliam Pavlc, in Surrey. Among 
tlie accomplislied men referred to in this passage are Dr. 
Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Garriclv, and others. 

623 Wieland, a German poet of the eighteenth century. 
Lessing, a German scholar and man of letters of the eigh- 
teenth century. 

626 Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's famous political satire. 
629 Johnson. In the Life of Addison included among his Lives 

of the Poets. 
656 PoUio, a Roman politician and author of the Augustan age. 
He declared that Livy's style smacked of the provincial 
dialect of Patavium, an Italian city near the Po, where 
that writer was born. 
608 Erasmus, one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance. 
He was famous for the beauty of his Latin style. 
Fracastorius, an Italian physician of the sixteenth century 

who wrote a number of Latin poems. 
Dr. Robertson, a Scotch historian of the last century. 
674 alcaics, a classical metre taking its name from the Greek 
poet Alcseus. 
Gray, the famous author of the I^lef/;/ in a Country CJntrcJn/ard. 
elegiacs, another classical metre consisting of hexameter and 

pentameter lines alternately. 
Vincent Bourne, an English scholar of the eighteenth century, 
author of some much-admired Latin poems. 
681 Vida, an Italian writer of Latin poetry. 

Sannazar, an Italian poet who wrote a Latin poem on the 
birth of the Virgin. 
685 Fraguier, a French scholar and writer of Latin verse contem- 
porary with Boileau. 
693 " Oh, Muse, why dost thou bid me once more stammer in 
Latin verses, me born far north of the Alps, of a Sigam- 
brian (German, or perhaps barbarian) father." 
697-698 Machinae Gesticulantes (the puppets), Gerano-Pygmaeo- 



186 NOTES 

machia (the war of the Cranes and Pygmies), two of 
Addison's Latin poems. 

721 his engagements, etc. Louis XIV. liad entered into an arrange- 

ment, called the Treaty of Partition, with England and 
Holland, that at the death of the childless King of Spain 
the greater part of his possessions should go to an Austrian 
Archduke, while France was to receive certain Italian 
territories belonging to Spain as a compensation. To pre- 
vent the division of his empire the King of Spain left it 
entirely to a French prince, the grandson of Louis, whose 
acceptance of the bequest brought on the War of the Span- 
ish Succession. 

722 the States General, the representative assembly of the Dutch 

Republic. 
737 Ligurian. Liguria was a Roman maritime province in the 

southwest corner of France and the northeast corner of 

Italy, corresponding roughly to the Riviera of the present 

day. 
749 Savona, a little town on the Ligurian coast, not far from 

Genoa. 
752 Doge, the Italian equivalent for duke, the title of the chief 

magistrate of Genoa as well as of Venice. 
75.3 Book of Gold, the official register in which the names of the 

noble families were inscribed. 
756 the Annunciation, one of the largest and most splendid 

churches of (ienoa. Addison noted that " all biit one 

corner of it was covered with statues, gilding, and 

paint." 

758 Doria, the greatest of the Genoese patrician families. Addi- 

son said " perhaps no house in Europe can show a longer 
line of heroes tliat have still acted for the good of their 
country." 

759 Gothic magnificence. The cathedral of IMilan is one of the most 

striking specimens of Gothic architecture in Italy. Addison 
noted that the front was not Iialf finished, and that the 
inside was smutted with dust and the smoke of lamps. 
7G0 Benacus, now Lago di Garda, one of the beautiful lakes of 
northern Italy. Virgil refers to its stormy waters in the 
second Georaic. 



ADDISON 187 

769 Cato, the younger, the enemy of Caesai". 

770 Scipio, ISIetellus Scipio, father-in-law of Pompey and com- 

mander of the senatorial forces against Caesar in the 

African campaign. 
788 San Marino, a tiny republic in the Apennines, still existing. 
797 the metropolis, etc., Rome. 
800 St. Peter's, the cathedral of Rome and the greatest church in 

the world. 
the Pantheon, a Roman temple built in the time of Augustus, 

now a Christian church. 
802 Holy Week, the week before Easter. At Rome it is given up 

almost entirely to religious services of a very beautiful and 

impressive character. 
815 the Appian Way, a Roman road taking its name from its 

builder, Appius Claudius. 

819 Herculaneum, a town on the slope of Mt. Vesuvius, over- 

whelmed by the famous eruption which destroyed Pom- 
peii. The very sites of these cities were unknown when 
Addison visited Naples. 

820 Pzestum, a deserted city on the Italian coast, south of Xaples, 

famous for its beautiful Greek temples. It was unknown 
to modern scholars till about 1745. 

824 Salvator. Salvator Rosa, a famous Neapolitan painter of 

the seventeenth century. 

825 Vico, a great Italian philosopher and student of the class- 

ics. 
827 Yucatan, a peninsula in Mexico containing several ruined 
cities, which have only recently been exjslored. 

829 Posilipo, a ridge to the southwest of Naples. A tunnel 

running through it is said to have been opened by Augus- 
tus. 

830 Capreas, now Capri, an island in the bay of Naples, one of 

the loveliest spots in the world. 

834 Philip the Fifth, the French prince mentioned in the note to 
line 721. 

837 the Italian dependencies, viz. : JNIilan, Naples, Sicily, and Sar- 
dinia. 

842 Jacobitism, the belief of the Jacobites, adherents of James IT., 
in the divine riyht of kings. 



188 NOTES 

Freeholder, a periodical published by Addison; see pp. 131-2 

of this essay. 
the Tory foxhunter, a typical figure drawn by Addison in 

ridicule of the ignorant partisanship of many English 

country gentlemen. 
bis Trojan adventurers, the companions of JCneas. Misenus, the 

trumpeter of the party, was buried on an Italian promon- 
tory which takes its name from him. 
850 Circe, the famous witch of Greek mythology, who gave her 

name to the promontory Circeii on the west coast of Italy. 
853 Ostia, a city at the mouth of the Tiber, the old seaport of 

Rome. 
867 Sienna, a city in Tuscany, famous among other things for 

the beauty of its Gothic cathedral. 
882 the Museum, the Uflizzi gallery, containing, among other 

famous statues, the Venus de' ]\ledici, the Wrestlers, and 

the Niobe group. 

886 Eugene, Prince Eugene, the great Austrian general, next to 

Marlborough the most formidable opponent of Louis 
XIV. 

887 the Rhaetian Alps divide Austria from Lombardy. 
Catinat, a French marshal under Louis XIV. 

888 The faithless ruler, Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. He 

had deserted the allies and joined Louis shortly before the 
peace of Ryswick, but deserted Louis to join the allies 
shortly after the beginning of the War of the Spanish Suc- 
cession. 

892 the Grand Alliance, of iMigland, Holland, Prussia, and Austria, 
to prevent Louis from accepting the bequest of the Spanish 
empire for his grandson. 

895 Mont Cenis, one of the Alps, between France and Italy. 
Napoleon built a fine military road over it. 

911 Dryden died in 1700; the Essai/ on Criticism, the best of 
Pope's early works, was pnblislied in 1711. 

919 impeached by the House of Commons. Halifax was impeached, 
that is ordered to be tried, for negotiating the Partition 
Treaty, already mentioned. He denied the charge, and his 
peers, the House of Lords, by whom alone he could be 
tried, threw out the bill of impeachment. 



ADDISON 189 

934 death of William the Third. William's horse stumbled over 
a molehill in Hampton Park and threw his rider. The 
shock was too great for the king's enfeebled health and 
he died about two weeks later, March 8, 1702. 

936 personal, political, and religious. Anne had repeatedly 
quarrelled with William and Mary, owing largely to her in- 
fatuation for the Marlboroughs. The Whigs had naturally 
supported the king in these quarrels. In politics, Anne 
was opposed to the liberal pi'inciples of the AVhigs, and 
their Low Church ideas wei-e most distasteful to her High 
Church prejudices. 

941 the Privy Council, the body of advisers to the monarch out of 
which the present English cabinet has developed. 

945 tutor. There is no good authority for this statement. 

954 the United Provinces, i.e. of Holland. 

970-971 Godolphin and Marlborough. See Introduction, p. liii. 

977 the funded debt, the national debt, then a new thing in Eng- 
land. It had its origin in a financial measure of Monta- 
gue's in 1692. 
Dissenters, Protestants who dissented from the Church of 
England. 
1002 Canning, a great English statesman of the beginning of 
this century. Though a Tory he broke with the Holy 
Alliance which the Tories had favored, and in union with 
the United States preserved the Spanish Republics of 
South America from European conquest. 

1004 Nottingham and Jersey. See Introduction, pp. liii. and liv. 

1005 Lord Eldon, the famous Tory chancellor of the beginning 

of this century. He was a most narrow-minded and 
bigoted man. 
Lord Westmoreland, a strong Tory, held a high place in the 
same ministry as Eldon. 

1008 Sunderland, Cowper. See Introduction, p. Hi. 

1015 Blenheim, a complete victory won by Marlborough and 
Eugene over the French. 

1019 the Imperial throne, the Holy Roman Empire, of which the 
Archduke of Austria was at that time hereditary sover- 
eign. The French were pressing on toward Vienna when 
they were beaten at Blenheim. 



190 NOTES 

1020 the Act of Settlement, the Act of Parliament settling the 
succession to the throne upon the House of Hanover. 
Louis, who was supporting the claim of the exiled Stuarts 
to the English throne, was naturally hostile to this act. 

1028 Newmarket, the well-known English race course. 

1068 a visit. There is a very good account of this visit in Thack- 
eray's Henry Esmond. 

1077 the famous similitude, etc. Addison, after speaking of 

Marlborough's coolness in the heat of battle and the pre- 
cision with which he directed the attack, says : — 

" So wheu an angel by divine command 
With rising tempests shakes a guilty laud, 
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform. 
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

1078 A Commissionership, a place in the Customs. 

1081 The Campaign, the name of the poem just described. 

1113 Lycia, a country in Asia Minor, the" ally of Troy during the 

siege of that city. 
Scamander, the little stream that flowed through the plain 

of Troy. 

1116 Sidonian. Sidon was famous for its bronze armor. 

1117 Thessalian. Thessaly, a country in the north of Greece, 

was famous for its horses. 

1120 Lifeguardsman Shaw, a famous pugilist of great bodily size 
and strength. He fell at Waterloo, where he is said to 
have killed ten Frenchmen. He belonged to the Life- 
guards, a crack regiment of English cavalry. 

1123 the Mamelukes, the famous cavalry of Egypt, beaten by 
Napoleon at the battle of the Pyramids. Mourad Bey 
was their leader. 

1138 Asdrubal, etc. The names in this passage are taken from 
the poem of Silius already referred to. The only histori- 
cal names are Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, Nero, the 
Roman general who defeated him at the Metaurus, Fabius, 
the great opponent of Hannibal in the early part of the 
war, and Hannibal himself. The others are imaginary. 

1150 John Philips, a minor poet of Addison's day, who wrote a 



ADDISON 191 

poem called Blenheim, in honor of iMarlboroiig'h's victory. 
The lines in the text are taken from this poem. The 
Splendid Shilling, which Addison called the finest burlesque 
poem in the British language, is a mock-heroic imitation 
of Milton's style. 

1154 Churchill, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. 

1155 Tallard, a French general captured at Blenheim. 

1176 Johnson's remarks. Johnson, in his Life of Addison (Lives 
of the Poets) insists that the celebrated simile is not a 
simile at all, and that the general idea was one that would 
have occurred to any writer on the battle of Blenheim. 

1203 speculations on the projects of Victor, as to which side the 
Duke of Savoy would take in the War of the Spanish 
Succession. 

1207 Rutulians, an Italian tribe which resisted the settlement of 
^Eneas. 

1210 Faustina, the wicked wife of Marcus Aurelius. 

1226 Boiardo and Berni, Italian poets of the Renaissance. 
Lorenzo, the greatest ruler of the great liouse of tlie Medici, 

a poet as well as a statesman. 

1227 Machiavelli, the great Florentine statesman and historian. 
1230-1 Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris, minor Latin 

poets. 
the Ticin, a river in northern Italy. 

1233 Albula, a stream near Rome. 

Martial, a Roman poet and satirist of the first century. 

1234 Santa Croce, the great church in which the famous dead of 

Florence, among others Galileo, Michael Angelo, and 
Machiavelli, are buried. 

1235 the wood of Ravenna, the Pinetum, or pine-wood, just outside 

Ravenna. The Spectre Huntsman was the ghost of a dead 
lover who was seen chasing the spirit of his hard-hearted 
mistress through this wood. This story, first told by 
Boccaccio, is the subject of one of Dryden's best poems, 
Theodore and Honoria. 
1237 Francesca, a lady of Rimini, slain by her husband because of 
her guilty passion for his brother, Paolo. The pathetic 
story of the lovers forms one of the most celebrated pas- 
sages in Dante. 



192 NOTES 

1241 Filicaja, an Italian poet of Addison's time. IMacaiilay's 

estimate of him is absurdly exaggerated. 
1250 Rosamond, a sort of comic opera on the story of Henry II. 's 

love for Fair Rosamond. 
1257 Rowe, a dramatist of Addison's day, famous for his bom- 
bastic, blank verse tragedies. 
1260 Arne, an English musical composer, author of the nuisie for 

Rule Britannia. 
1272 the Great Seal, used for giving Royal sanction to documents. 

It is in the official keeping of the Lord High Chancellor 

of England. 
1275 the order of the garter, the most famous order of knighthood 

in England, founded by Edward III. in honor of St. 

George. It is, as a rule, only bestowed upon royal persons 

and members of the highest nobility. 
the Electoral Prince, the acknowledged heir to the English 

throne, afterward George I. 

1287 the Duchess of Marlborough, a beautiful and fascinating, but 

imperious and headstrong woman, had been the intimate 
friend of Queen Anne, over whom she had obtained almost 
absolute control. Her dictatorial manners finally wore out 
the queen's- temper and she was dismissed from court. 

1288 the Captain General, ^Marlborough. 

1294 Sacheverell. See Outline of English History, p. 1. 
Harley. See Table of Politicians, p. liv. 

1298 Lord President, etc., i.e. presiding officer of the Privy Council. 

1299 Wharton. See Introduction, p. Hi. 

1317-18 Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, the family names of the 
ducal houses of Shrewsbury, Bedford, and Portland. 

1319 a post, i.e. that of Secretary of State. 

1320 Chatham, AVilliam Pitt the Elder, first Lord Chatham, one 

of the greatest of English statesmen. 
Fox, Charles James Fox, the great Whig statesman of the 
close of the last century. 

1324 the interval, etc., the period from 1693 to about 1771. 

1332 the Conduct of the Allies, a party pamphlet by Swift, attack- 
ing the conduct of the Whig ministry and their allies in 
unduly prolonging the war with France. 

1340 Antrim and Aberdeenshire, counties in the north of Ireland 
and Scotland respectively. 



ADDISON 193 

1351 Walpole and Pulteney. Walpole was the great Whig prime 
minister of George I. and George II. ; Pulteney was his 
most able opponent. 

1357 Grub Street, a street in London, formerly noted as the abode 
of poor authors. It has come to be a stock phrase for the 
body of hack writers for the press. 

1361 the Craftsman, a political periodical attacking Walpole's 
administration. 

1375 pudding sleeves, the large loose sleeves of the black gowns 
worn by clergymen at that time. 

1398 Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution. She iiunished 
especially careless and presumptuous prosperity. 

HOG Mary Montague, one of the cleverest women in England in 
the first jnirt of the last century. She had some literary 
talent and was a friend or acquaintance of most of the 
writers of her day. 

nil Stella, the nick-name which Swift gave his sweetheart, 
Esther Johnson. 

141(J Terence, a Latin comedian, famous for his gracefid wit, as 
Catullus (see note, 1. 203) is for his perfect style. 

1118 Young, an English poet of the last century, a younger con- 
temporary of Addison's. 

1133 Mr. Softly 's sonnet. This essay, Taller, No. 163, as well as 
those in which Lady Q-p-t-s appears, Spectator, Nos. 567 
and 568, should, if possible, be read by the student. It is 
impossible to give in a note any idea of the " innocent 
mischief " which Addison displays in them. 

144:5 St. Paul's in Covent Garden, a London church not to be con- 
fused with the great cathedral of St. Paul's. Button's 
coffee-house was in Covent Garden. 

1162 Queen Anne's reign. This is one of ]\Iacaulay's sweeping 
exaggerations. Swift and Pope, both writers of this 
period, were distinguished for their temperate habits. 

1181 Boswell. See note on 1. 1982 of the Essay on Milton. 

Warburton, an English divine and scholar of the last century. 
Hurd, an English divine and scholar, the client and humble 
admirer of Warburton, whose works he edited. 

1487 Budgell, a first cousin once removed of Addison's. He 
studied law in the Temple, an old building once belong- 



194 NOTES 

ing to the Knights Templars, later one of the London law 
schools, but spent most of his time in literature. He wrote, 
among other things, one of the Sir Roger de Coverley 
papers in the Spectator. His mind was affected in the 
latter part of his life, which probably led to his eccen- 
tricities and crime. The last lines here alluded to were 
as follows : 

" What Cato did, and Addisou approved, 
Cannot be wrong." 

They were written in view of his intended suicide by 
drowning in the Thames. 
1502 Ambrose Phillipps, not to be confused with John Philips. 
See note on 1. 11.50. He was the autlior of a set of 
Pastorals greatly admired by Addison's set, and the 
adapter from the French of the Distressed Mother, which 
Sir Roger de Coverley saw on his memorable visit to the 
theatre. He also wrote a number of poems to children, the 
tinkling sweetness of which earned first for him, and then 
for the style in which his poems were written, the title of 
"Nam by Pamby." One of them, for example, begins: — 

" Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling, 
All caressing, none beguiling, 
Bud of beauty, fairly blowing, 
Every charm to nature owing." 

1.507 Richard Steele. See Introduction to Essay on Addison, p. xliii. 

1508 Tickell, a minor poet of the time. Nearly everything that 
is worth saying about iiim is said in this essay. 

1526 a spunging house, a place of detention where arrested debtors 
were kept for a day or so before being taken to jail, in 
order that their friends might have a chance to pay the 
debt. These houses took their name from the outrageous 
charges their owners made for food, drink, and lodging, 
"spunging " being an old slang phrase for "swindling." 

1538 Savage, a wild and wretched English poet, the friend of Dr. 
Johnson. 

1548 Fielding's Amelia, the last novel of Henry Fielding, the 
greatest novelist of the eighteenth century. 

1 ")(')') Bayle's Dictionary. Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher 
and critic of the seventetMith ct'utniy. \l\^ DictioiDioire 



ADDISON 195 

Historiqne cl Critique was highly vahied l)y Addison, who 
is said to have had it always lying open on his table. 

1576 an ingenious and graceful little poem. Tickell's Lines to Mr. 
Addison on his Opera of Rosamond are a piece of gross 
flattery. He compares Addison's trifling work to Virgil's 
account of Dido's love and death, and hails him as the 
" great monarch of the British lays." 

1581 the rival bulls. In the third Georgic Virgil has a fine pic- 
ture of two bulls fighting for the love of a beautiful heifer. 

100,3 Cavan, a county town in the north of Ireland. Addison's 
speeches in the Irish Parliament referred to in this con- 
nection are mere formal reports. 

IGIO Gerard Hamilton, an English politician of the eighteenth 
century. His first speech in Parliament made an extraor- 
dinary sensation, and he spoke so little thereafter that 
he was nicknamed " Single-speech Hamilton." He did 
not, however, sit absolutely mute at Westminster, for 
there is a notice of a second speech of his. 

1614 Lord Halifax, the grand-nephew of Addison's friend and 
patron. 

1630 periodical papers. Newspapers began in England during 
the civil wars of the . seventeenth century. In Queen 
Anne's reign the first permanent daily newspaper was 
established. Other periodical publications were Defoe's 
Review, the British Apollo, the Protestant Postboy, etc. 

1636 Gazetteer, i.e. editor of the Gazette, the official newspaper of 
the government, whose rule was, in Steele's words, to 
keep it "very innocent and very insipid." He was not 
appointed by Sunderland at the request of Addison, but 
by Harley, and later lost his place for permitting an 
attack on that statesman to appear in the Tatler, which 
Swift called " devilish ungrateful." 

1645 Will's, a London coffee-house, which Dryden had long made 
the headquarters of men of letters. The Grecian was 
another coffee-house near the Temple, chiefly visited by 
learned men. 

1665 Mr. Paul Pry, a character in a play of the same name, very 
popular when this essay was written. 

1667 Partridge, the best known of the London almanac makers of 



19G NOTES 

Addison's time. He culled himself " Student in Physick 
and Astrology," and predicted the events of the coming- 
year in his almanacs. 
1698 Temple, Sir William Temple, an English statesman of the 
reign of Charles II. He wrote a number of essays which 
are remarkable for their charm of style. 

1702 Horace Walpole, son of the statesman mentioned in 1. 1351. 

He wrote many prose works, of whose style IMacaulay 
says elsewhere : " His composition often reads, for a page 
together, like a rude translation from the French." 
the half Latin style, etc. Johnson's style is not so latinized as 
one would thiidc from this reference. But he undoubtedly 
was fond of using long words where most writers use short 
ones. Goldsmith once said to him, " Doctor, if you wrote 
a fable, you would make the little fishes talk like whales." 

1703 half German jargon. This is probably a thrust at Carlyle, 

whose style was largely influenced by his German studies. 
1708 Menander, an old Greek comedian, whose plays, now lost, 
served as models for those of Plautus and Terence. There 
is frequent reference in classical writers to his clever wit 
and elegant language. 

1710 Butler, an English poet of the Restoration. His best known 

work is Hudibras, a very witty satire on the Puritans. 

1711 " Lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller," a very clever little poem by 

Addison to Kneller, the great portrait painter of his day, 
on his picture of George I. It is full of the most artful 
flattery, both of the painter and of the king. 

1719 a great poet, used here in the sense of a creative genius, not 
merely a writer of verse. 

1728 Cervantes, the great Spanish writer. His characters of Don 
Quixote and Sancho Panza are among the most real in 
the woi'ld of fiction. 

1740 Voltaire, one of the greatest Frenchmen of the eighteenth 
century — poet, historian, and philosopher. He was dis- 
tinguished for his command of ridicule, which he heaped 
impartially upon kings, priests, and his private enemies. 
Macaulay says in his Ensny on Frederick the Great : " Of 
all the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded 
by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire." 



ADDISON 197 

1754 the commination service, a solemn service in the English 
Book of Common Prayer, composed of a proclamation of 
God's wrath against sinners, and various penitential psalms 
and prayers. It is omitted in the American Prayer Book. 

1763 Jack Pudding, the low clown of a farce. 

a Cynic, the name applied to a school of Greek philosopliers 
who taught that pleasure was, in itself, an evil. It is 
now applied to all persons of a dissatisfied and sneering 
disposition. 

1771 Abb6 Coyer, a French author of Voltaire's day. 

1773 Arbuthnot, a doctor and man of letters of Queen Anne's 
reign. His best work, The History of John Dull, is a polit- 
ical satire in the manner of Swift. 

1778 the World, etc. These are the names of a series of eigh- 
teenth century periodicals. 

1797 Mephistophiles, a devil, the spirit that denies the truth, and 

tempts men away from it. 

1798 Soame Jenyns, an English man of letters of the last century, 

a contemporary of Dr. Johnson. 
Puck, the mischievous fairy of the Midsummer Night's Dream. 

1819 Bettesworth, a lawyer and member of the Irish Parliament. 

He offended Swift, who attacked him in a satirical 
poem : — 

" Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth, 
Tho' half a crown o'erpays his sweat's worth, 
Who knows iu law nor text or margeut, 
Calls Siugletoni his brother sergeant." 

1820 Franc de Pompignan, a French gentleman with some pre- 

tensions to literary talent. He was admitted into the 
Academy and distingiushed himself in his first speech by 
a savage attack on the philosophers of the day. Voltaire, 
then an exile, took up the cudgels for his order, and over- 
whelmed De Pompignan with such a continuous shower 
of ridicule that the unlucky man fled from Paris, and 
buried himself in his native village. 
1830 Jeremy Collier, an English divine who, in 1698, wrote a 
famous i^amphlet called A Short View of the Imviorality 
and Profaneness of the English Stage. It made a great 
1 Singleton was one of the greatest lawyers of the time. 



198 NOTES 

sensation, anrl helped to free the stage from the inde- 
cencies which had disgraced it since the Restoration. 

1831 Etherege, the first of tlie Restoration dramatists, a gay and 
witty writer whom Macanlay wrongs by bi-acketing with 
Wycherly, a somewhat later dramatist, notorious for the 
cynical indecency of his plays. 

1838 Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England under Charles II., fa- 
mous for his piety in a licentious age. 
Tillotson. See note, 1. 130. 

1841 Vanbrugh, an English architect and comedian of Addison's 
day. Collier asserted that all his heroes were professed 
libertines. 

1852 Tom Folio, etc. The student should, if possible, read these 
papers. They are Nos. L^S, 163, 15.5, 250, 253, 25(5, 259, 
202, 265, 220, 254, and 249 of the Taller. 

1860 Smalridge, an English bishop of Addison's day, "abounding 
in that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes religion 
beautiful." 

1877 a disputed title. Anne's claim to the throne rested on an 
act of Parliament disinheriting her younger brother, 
James Francis Edwai'd, afterward known as the Old 
Pretender. The legality of this act was, of course, denied 
by the Jacobites. 

1886 outbreaks in 1820 and 1831. The first of these was to tes- 
tify the popular sympathy with Queen Caroline, whose 
husband, George IV., was endeavoring by slanderous accu- 
sations to secure a divorce. The second heralded the 
passage of the famous Reform Bill. 

1896 Marli, a village near Versailles, where Louis XIV. had a 

beautiful summer palace. 

1897 the Pretender, Queen Anne's brother. 
St. James's, a royal palace in London. 

1905 his white staff, his sign of office as Lord Treasurer. 

1916 him who, etc., Ilarley. 

1931 the government, etc., Lord North's. 

1932 the government, etc.. Lord Portland's, which, in 1809, made a 

mad attempt to seize Antwerp. About half the army 
died of swamp fever. Walcheren is an island near 
Antwerp. 



ADDISON 199 

1941 a great lady, the Countess of AVarwick. 

1953 as tutor again. As Addison was able to spend $50,000 in 

buying an estate this year, it does not seem that he was 

reduced to iwverty. 
Commissioner of Stamps, not of post-office, but of revenue 

stamps. 

2019 Child's, a London coffee-house frequented by the clergy. 

2020 St. James's, a London coffee-house frequented by the Whigs. 

The Tories went to White's. 

2042 Richardson, the novelist, author of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, 

etc. 

2043 Smollett, the third of the great trio of English novelists 

here named, author of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, 
etc. 

2051 Spring Gardens, a public place of entertainment on the 

Surrey side of London, better known as Vauxhall. 
the Abbey, Westminster. 

2052 the Mohawks, wild young men of fashion who roamed the 

streets at night, playing cruel practical jokes upon all 
whom they encountered. There is a long account of them 
in the three hundred and twenty-fourth number of the 
Spectator. 

2053 the Distressed Mother. See note, line 1502. 
2056 a jack, a pickerel. 

2001 the Spectator resigns, etc. All the events mentioned in the 
above lines are found in the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 

2085 Lucian, a Greek satirist of the second century of our era. 
The Auction of Lives is a witty dialogue in ridicule of 
philosophers. 

2087 Scherezade, the story -telling Sultana of the Arabian Nights. 

2088 La Bruyere, a French writer of the seventeenth century. 

His chief work, Les Caracteres, is a series of character- 
sketches. 

2090 Horatian, i.e. resembling Horace, the famous Latin poet and 
satirist. 

2093 Massillon, a great French preacher of Addison's time. 

2098 the two Visits, etc. Tliese and the following essays should, 
if possible, be read by the student. They are Nos. 26, 
329, 69, 317, 159, 343, and 517. 



200 XOTES 

211') Chevy Chace, a fine old English ballad, telling of the great 
l>aUlc between tlie Percy and the Douglas. Addison 
wrote two papers {Spectator, Nos. 70, 74) on it, illustrat- 
ing its good points by comparing it with Virgil. 

2121 the stamp tax. The Tory ministry in 1712 imposed a tax of 
a halfpenny a luilf sheet on all papers and pamphlets. 

2123 doubled its price, from a penny to two-pence. Therp was a 
good deal of grumbling over the increased price, and 
Addison wrote a humorous paper {Spectator, No. 488) 
recommending people to spend less in other ways and 
keep on buying his paper. 

2128 bohea, tea, the fashionable morning drink in Queen Anne's 
time. The name comes from two hill ranges in a Chinese 
province whence tea was first expoi'ted to England. 

2142 Scott. Twenty thousand copies of the Lady of the Lake were 
sold within the first year. Of Ivanhoe, perhaps his most 
successful novel, twelve thousand copies were sold at once. 
Dickens, there were some seventy thousand subscribers to 
the magazine in which the Old Curiosilij Shop and Barnahij 
Rudge appeared a year or two before this essay was writ- 
ten. 

2149 the Guardian, a daily paper started by Steele. It took its 
name from its supposed editor, Nestor Ironside, the guai'd- 
ian, not only of the young Lizards (fictitious characters 
who appear from time to time in the paper), but also of 
the manners and morals of the English people. 

2167 some thought, etc. Dryden is said to have dissuaded him 
from attempting to get his first sketch of Cato staged, and 
Pope seems to have expressed the same opinion of the fin- 
ished play. 

2173 Sempronius, a character in the play of Catn who raises a mu- 
tiny against the hero, and attempts to desert to Caesar. 

2181 Mr. Macready, a great actor and manager of Macaulay's day. 
Juba, the young lover of Cato's daughter, Marcia, in the 
play. 

2183 the birthday, that of the sovereign, when a Duchess would 
naturally wear her very best. 

2185 Booth, a tragic actor of that time who reached the climax of 
his reputation by this performance. 



ADDISON 201 

2188 the Peers in Opposition. The majority of the House of Lords 

at this time were Wiiigs in opposition to the Tory minis- 
try. 

2189 the Inns of Court, the London law schools, whose students 

prided themselves at that time on their taste for literature 
and the drama. 

2192 warm men, a slang phrase of Addison's day for rich men. 

2193 Jonathan's and Garroway's, coffee-houses frequented by 

merchants and stock-brokers. 

2200 the great military chief, Julius Csesar. He does not appear 
in Addison's play, but the hero, Cato, is forever denounc- 
ing him. 

2205 the October, a high Tory club, so called from the October 
ale, the favorite drink of its members. 

2225 the epilogue, a rather silly tirade against the worship of 
wealth. 
Garth, a physician, poet, and politician of Addison's day. 

2239 a patent, here meaning an edict by the Queen. 

2246 the Act, the public disputation to attain a degree at Oxford. 
The occasions on which these were held corresponded 
roughly to the commencements of our colleges. 

2256 Schiller, the great German dramatist. Among " the pro- 
ductions of his manhood " are William Tell, Maria Stuart, 
and Wallenstein. 

2259 Athalie, Racine's great play ; Saul, the most successful play 

of Alfieri, the great Italian dramatist of the eighteenth 
century. 

2260 Cinna, one of the best plays of the great French dramatist, 

Corneille. 
2271 Dennis, a mediocre poet and critic of the day. His Remarks 

on Cato, preserved in part by Johnson (Life of Addison), 

are a series of amusing and sarcastic attacks on some 

absurdities of the play, which had passed unnoticed in 

the tumult of applause. 
2317 Atticus, the name Pope gave to Addison when attacking 

him in the satire mentioned below. See lines 2785, etc. 
Sporus, Pope's nickname for Lord Hervey, a courtier whom 

he hated. 
2327 peripetia, change of fortune, as shown by the next words of 



202 NOTES 

the text. In a tragedy the change is usually from good 

to bad. 
23i9 Stockbridge, a borough in the South of England. 
2401 the Lords Justices, the members of the council just referred 

to in the text. 
2410 Mackintosh, an English historian of Macaulay's time. 

He wrote a history of the Revolution of 1688. 
2331 sign manual, autograph. 
2434 the India Board, the governing body of India before the 

possessions of the old East India Company were turned 

over to the nation. 

2459 much good nature, etc. Addison presented a copy of his 

Travels in Ilaly to " Dr. Jonathan Swift, the most agree- 
able companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius 
of his age." 

2460 Swift of 1708. In this year Swift was the close friend of 

Addison, Steele, and the other Whig men of letters. In 
1738 he was declining into the madness in which he died. 
2465 his profession, the Church. 

2468 the Tale of a Tub, an early work by Swift, meant to ridi- 

cule the Roman Catholics and Dissenters, but in fact treat- 
ing all religious sects rather flippantly. 

2469 their orthodoxy. The Whigs were not only liberal in church 

matters, but some of them, Wharton for instance, were 
infidels and blasphemers. 

2480 a country, Ireland. 

2485 the hereditary guests, Glaucus and Diomed. The story is 
told in the sixth book of the Iliad. The passage in the 
text is translated as follows : " Let us shun each other's 
spears, even amid the throng; Trojans there are in multi- 
tudes and famous allies for me to slay, whoe'er it be that 
God vouchsafeth me and my feet overtake; and for thee 
there are Achaians in nmltitude, to slay whome'er thou 
canst." 

2500 the Dean of St. Patrick's, that is of the Cathedral of St. 
Patrick in Dublin, the ecclesiastical dignity mentioned in 
line 2478. 

2526 the Board of Trade, a department of the government looking 
after commerce. 



ADDISON 203 

2527 The Drummer, a rather ,stu}>id comedy. It was so badly 
received that Addison would not own it, and it was not 
included in the first edition of his works. But Steele, 
who must have known the truth, published it as Addi- 
son's. 

2536 the Rebellion, an attempt under the Earl of Mar to raise 
Scotland for the Pretender. 

2544: Squire Western, a country gentleman in Fielding's novel, 
Tom Jones, one of the best comic characters in English 
literature. 

2552 The High Street, the central street of Oxford. 

2570 Letter to the Bailiff, Reader, a political pamphlet and a peri- 
odical by Steele. 

2575 Pope was false, etc. This is another of jMacaulay's pictur- 
esque exaggerations. Addison had been very far from 
detecting such qualities in Pope, and it is an open question 
whether they existed for him to detect. 

2578 supernatural machinery, a technical term for all superhuman 
beings who interfere in the action of a poem or play, like 
the gods in the Iliad, or the fairies in Midsummer Night's 
Dream. 

2581 the Sylphs and Gnomes, the fairies of Air and Earth who 

appear in tlie Rape of the Lock. Umbriel is a gnome, the 
other three are sylphs. 

2582 The Rosicrucian m3rthology. The Society of the Rosy Cross 

was an elaborate hoax of the seventeenth century. Many 
were taken in by it, and believed in the existence of a 
body of philosophers who held sway over the spirits of the 
four elements. The mythology here alluded to is the 
Rosicrucian doctrine that each element had its own pe- 
culiar inhabitants : sylphs lived in the air, gnomes in the 
earth, nymphs in the water, and salamanders in the fire. 

2608 Tasso, etc. In his latter years Tasso re-wrote and spoiled 

his great poem "Jerusalem Delivered." 

2609 Akenside, a minor poet of the eighteenth century. Tlie 

Pleasures of Imagination, published in 1744, was recast 
some twenty years later. His Epistle to Curio, i.e. to 
Pulteney (see note, 1. 1351) was published in 1744, and 
afterward altered into the Ode to Curio. 



204 NOTES 

2613 the Dunciad, the epic of the dunces, a famous satirical poem 
by Pope. 

2615 nobody else. Macaulay was apiiarently unaware that Shake- 
speare had recast several of his greatest plays, among 
others Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. 

2620 Herder, a German poet and critic of the eighteenth century. 

2621 Faust, the great magician who was said to have sold his soul 

to the devil. He is the hero of Goethe's greatest drama. 

2656 Bottom. Bottom and Peter Quince are characters in Shake- 
speare's Midsummer Night's Dream. 

2725 The Satirist, The Age, two scandalous Tory newspapers of 
the early part of the nineteenth century. 

2735 The Duke of Chandos, a very rich nobleman of Pope's day. 
A passage in one of Pope's poems was generally supposed 
to be an attack on his extravagance and bad taste. Pope 
denied the charge with great vehemence, and we may 
believe that he did not intend directly to lampoon the 
Duke, though he undoubtedly took some hints for his 
poem from the Duke's tastes and character. 

2730 Aaron Hill, an obscure poet of Pope's day. Macaulay's 
insinuation that Pope published a foul lampoon on Hill 
is quite unfounded, though there are some lines in the 
Dunciad, half complimentary, half satirical, that are sup- 
posed to refer to him. 

2741 Lady Mary Wortley Montague, one of the most talented 
women of Pope's day. She and Pope had been warm 
friends and correspondents, but ended as bitter enemies. 
Pope is said to have made a declaration of love to her 
and to have been rejected with a burst of laughter. He 
insulted her shamefully in several of his poems, and she 
is said to have replied in like fashion. 

2744 robbed himself of his own letters. Pope was anxious to have 
a volume of his letters, of which he was very proud, pub- 
lished. In order not to seem to do it himself, he had a 
man sell copies of them to a greedy publisher. He then 
threatened the publisher with arrest, and finally brought 
out an edition of his own under the pretense of being 
forced to do so by the mistakes and omissions of the 
first edition. The whole transaction was unworthy of a 



ADDISON 205 

great man, but peculiarly characteristic of Pope's jirefer- 
ence for the roundabout and the underhand. 

2755 act of gross perfidy. Bolingbroke had sent Pope a manu- 
script copy of his Patriot King, bidding him keep it 
strictly to himself. Pope had an edition of it privately 
printed with several alterations of his own. This was 
discovered soon after Pope's death and Bolingbroke was 
naturally very angry. As Pope, however, had not pub- 
lished the edition, and had only meant to preserve for 
posterity a work which he admired, it would seem that 
Macaiilay's charge of gross perfidy is somewhat exagger- 
ated. 

2769 a pamphlet, by a certain Gildon, a hack writer of the time. 
Warwick told Pope that Gildon had received ten guineas 
from Addison for this work. Warwick was the son of 
the widowed countess whom Addison was courting, and 
he seems to have hated his prospective step-father. 

2784 Atticus in prose. Macaulay probably refers to a letter from 

Pope to Addison's friend, Craggs (see Introduction, p. lii), 
in which there is a violent attack on Addison, containing 
most of the thoughts and many of the w^ords of the famous 
lines quoted below. But this letter was patched up by 
Pope fifteen years after the death of Craggs, in order to 
give color to Pope's version of the quarrel with Addison. 

2785 the energetic lines. Pope's satiric sketch of Addison, under 

the name of Atticus, is now found in his Epistle to Arbuth- 

not, and is as follows : — 

" Peace to all such! but were there oue whose fires 
True genius liindles, and fair fame inspires; 
Blest with each talent, and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live witli ease: 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View liim with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And liate for arts that caused himself to rise; 
Damn with faint praise, assent witli civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; 
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, 
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend ; 



206 NOTES 

Dreadiug ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause ; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise — 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? 
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he? " 

2787 sent them to Addison. Pope says he did, but his whole story 
of tlie quari'el is very untrustworthy. It is quite unlikely 
that Addison ever saw the famous verses. No one in fact 
seems to have seen them till after his death, so that 
Macaulay's eulogy of Addison's conduct in this matter 
loses somewhat of its force. 

2810 Peter Teazle, a character in Sheridan's comedy, The. School 
for Scandal. 
Joseph Surface, a smooth-spoken hypocrite in the same play 
who fills Sir Peter's ears with praises of virtue while he is 
seeking to seduce Sir Peter's wife. 

2823 penal laws. In Pope's time no Catholic could hold any 
public position, the public exercise of their religion was 
forbidden, they had to pay double taxes, and were not 
allowed to acquire real estate. In times of excitement 
even severer laws were enforced upon them. 

2840 Holland House, a splendid mansion in Kensington, — once a 
suburb, now a district of London. It takes its name from 
Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, for whom it was built. 

28-41 Chelsea, a suburb in the west of London. 

2842 Nell Gwynn, the famous actress of the Restoration, whose 
beauty captivated Charles II. 

2850 fashionable amusements, these were, the nightly tricks of the 
Mohawks (note, 1. 2052). 

2852 Holborn Hill, a steep hill in the centre of London. 

2864 Chloe, a name taken from Greek poetry, applied by Rowe to 
the Countess of Warwick. 

2866 Lycidas, the name used by Milton for his friend, Edward 
King, who was drowned in St. George's Channel; hence a 
name of ill-omen. 

2873 Madras, a district in Hindostan in the possession of the East 
India Company. 



ADDISON 207 

an estate. See note on 1. 1953. 

2876 Somervile, a Warwickshire gentleman of Addison's day, a 
skilful sportsman and a man of letters. He wrote a long 
poem called The Chase. 

2889 Townshend. See Introduction, p. lii. 

2895 the Seals, the symbol of his office as a Secretary of State. 

2914 Joseph Hume, a leader of the Radical party in Macaulay's 
time, a watch-dog of the Treasury. 

2960 Letter to Congreve, prefixed to Steele's edition of Addison's 
play. The Drummer. 

2969 whose religion, etc. Roman Catholic noblemen could not at 
that time sit in the House of Lords. 

2984 Anne's last ministry. In 1711 the Tory ministry created 
twelve Tory Peers in order to overcome the Whig majority 
in the House of Lords. 

2999 the Plebeian. Macaulay exaggerates the whole quarrel 
between Steele and Addison. The tone of the disjautants, 
considering the license of speech in political discussions, 
is most admirable. Steele, indeed, resented bitterly 
something that he took to be a covert threat of personal 
chastisement, but he closed his papers very neatly with a 
quotation from Cato, while Addison closed the Old Whig 
with a compliment to Steele's talents as a pamphleteer. 

3027 The Duenna, a play by Sheridan. 

3035 Gay, a charming English poet of Addison's time, the close 
friend of Pope, Swift, and the Tory wits. 

3114 Jerusalem Chamber, a room adjoining Westminster Abbey, 
taking its name, perhaps, from the tapestries with which it 
was hung. They represented scenes from the history of 
Jerusalem. 

3119 St. Edward. Edward the Confessor, the founder of West- 

minster Abbey. 

3120 the Plantagenets, the name of the dynasty running from 

Henry II. to Richard III. ; many of them are buried ia 
Westminster Abbey. 
the chapel of Henry the Seventh, a splendid chapel added to 
the Abbey by this king to be his burial place. 

3121 House of Albemarle, founded by Monk, who brought back 

Charles II. 



208 , NOTES 

3132 Cowper, the gentle English poet of the close of the eighteenth 
century. 

3143 Parma, Modena, Guastalla, three towns, the centres of like- 

named duchies in northern Italy. Their rulers had been 
on the English side during the war of the Spanish 
Succession, and probably subscribed for Addison's works 
as a mark of resj^ect for the Whig statesman. 

3144 the Regent Orleans, the nephew of Louis XIV., who had been 

appointed Regent of France by that monarch during the 

minority of his infant heir. 
Cardinal Dubois, the former tutor of the Regent, at this time 

the most powerful statesman in France. Me and the 

Regent cultivated the friendship of England. 
313(5 the Everlasting Club and the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum are 

well-known essays in the Spectator, Nos. 72, .584, and 585. 
3156 the Poets' Corner, a corner in Westminster Abbey where 

Chaucer, Spenser, Tennyson, Browning, and many other 

English poets are buried. 



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